ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICEOSCOPY, ETC. 59 



Porifera. 



Species and Sponges. — H. Y. Wilson {The Scimtific 3IonthUj, 

 rJl'.i. ;U'.»-57). Racial features often vary up and down, apparently in 

 response to the environment, in such a way as is possible only to easily 

 alterable species-plasms. One comes to symbolize the latter after the 

 fashion of chemistry as complexes of atoms, molecules, and radicals. 

 Thus we may think of radicals which lose or gain atoms or simple mole- 

 cules in response to environmental (external or internal) conditions. The 

 radical thus varies up or dowm, and with it the features of the resulting 

 organism. The graded series met with in sponges are equally describ- 

 al)le in the language of the gene theory. It may be that the visible 

 material particles (chromatin masses) with which " characters " are 

 associated are not determinants but differentiations — as indeed the first 

 conspicuous differentiations that are made by the idioplasm in the 

 course of the chains of events which lead to the appearance of particular 

 characters. Close series of species are in a measure phylogenetic, but in 

 some cases the terms of the series represent only different degrees in the 

 response to the environmental stimuli, which related idioplasms have 

 carried out independently of one another. J. A. T. 



Genera in Sponges.— H. V. AVilsox {Joiirn. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc, 

 1919, l."i-19). A discussion of the genus Tetilla, and a plea for the 

 recognition of large heterogeneous genera (groups built up round a 

 type embodying a certain combination of well-marked features or cha- 

 racters) with included groups of types forming subgenera. A middle 

 way must be found between (a) combining genera so that groups are 

 formed too heterogeneous to be of use, and (b) splitting up genera on 

 the plan that each genus shall represent only a particular combination. 



J. A. T. 



Sponges of North Carolina.— W. C. Geoege and H. Y. Wilson 

 (Bull. Bureau Fisheries, 1919, 36, 131-9, 11 pis.). An account of 

 seventeen sponges from Beaufort ^ Harbour and vicinity, including 

 SpirastreUa andreu'sii sp. n. : Foterion atlantica sp. n., which begins as a 

 boring sponge and becoming free grows very large ; Suherites u/iilulatus, 

 which may be massive or branched ; Tetilla laminaris sp. n. ; Reniera 

 tuhifera sp. n. ; Esperiopsis obliqua sp. n., with very varied habit from 

 incrusting to branching ; Phheodictijon nodosum sp. n., where the skeleton 

 is not a reticulum of distinctly chalinine spiculo-fibres ; Fhoriospontjia 

 osbtirnensis sp. n., incrusting an Alcyonarian ; and other new species of 

 Axinella, Acanthella, Aplysilla, and Hircinia. An interesting form is 

 FleraplysiUa latens sp. n., which occurs in the form of thin colourless 

 incrustations on oyster shells. Its skeleton consists of simple independent 

 fibres made of sand-grains and the like held together bv a little spongin. 



J. A. T. 



Protozoa. 



NeW Balantidium. — Walfrido de Leon {Fhilippine Journ. Sci., 

 1919, 15, 389-408, 1 pi., 5 figs.). An account of Balantidium haughtvoiiti 

 sp. n. from the intestinal tract of a fresh-water snail, a species of 



