146 Transactions of the Society. 



embracing, as it did, nearly all the known forms. There was one speci- 

 men exhibited which was not really a statoblast but the hibernaculum of 

 Paludicella, and it was a very interesting point as to whether there was 

 any connexion between hibernacula and true statoblasts. In a paper 

 dealing with the Polyzoa of water-works, published in the Proceedings 

 of the Zoological Society three years ago. Dr. Harmer went into this 

 question, and concluded that there was ground for thinking that both 

 might be looked upon as internal buds which had evolved along some- 

 what different lines. His own contribution to the exhibition was a mass 

 of statoblasts of CristateUa, which were taken from one of the reservoirs 

 of the East London Water-works, where enormous numbers had occa- 

 sionally been found floating at the margin. The specimens shown had 

 remained in the bottle since 1900 ; he did not know whether they still 

 retained their vitality, but proposed to test them before long. London 

 water, he believed, was remarkably well filtered and free from micro- 

 scopic organisms, but in some parts of the country this was not always 

 the case, and under those circumstances Polyzoa being provided with 

 the necessary pabulum were enabled to develop in the pipes. 



The President made some observations on the xVuxiliary Polypides 

 discovered by Metchnikoff and Nitsche, and the account given of them 

 by Hincks. He asked Dr. Harmer whether he regarded the record of 

 statoblasts of mnrine Polyzoa by Joliet to be a sound observation. 



Dr. Harmer, in replying, admitted his ignorance of Xanthidia, but he 

 thought the answer to Mr. Earland's question was the one which he gave 

 himself ; that it was very improbable he would find, in a marine deposit 

 like chalk, anything comparable with statoblasts of fresh-water Polyzoa, 

 even making allowances for the possibility of the remains of fresh-water 

 organisms being included in a marine deposit. Chalk is a deposit in 

 which one would not expect to find fresh-water organisms ; and if any 

 organism were common in flints, one would find very great difficulty in 

 supposing it had anything to do with essentially fresh-water Polyzoa. 



In answer to the President's remarks, he confessed he had never 

 himself found anything in marine Polyzoa which there seemed the least 

 reason for associating with statoblasts. Conceivably there might be 

 something which was homologous with these bodies, but he did not 

 know of anything of the kind. 



With regard to the possibility of comparing anything in the nature 

 of polypides with statoblasts, that in itself seemed to him improbable. 

 The poiypide is the alimentary canal plus the tentacles and other organs 

 of an individual unit of the Polyzoa colony. The rest of the individual is 

 the outer body-wall surrounding the body-cavity containing the poiypide. 

 The statoblast has, in its early stages, no trace of poiypide, but it is 

 comparable with the body-wall of a single individual of the colony. 



