186 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



were about half the length of an elongated specimen. Budding was 

 observed in one case. The penetrant cnidoblasts are as Schulze 

 described. There are also volvents which Schulze was unable to find. 



J. A. T. 



Association of Tubularian and Sponge. — Ch. Perez {Comptes 

 Rendus Soc. Biol., 1920, 83, 835-7). A new species, Tuhidaria 

 ceratogyne, from the Pas-de-Calais, where it lives under big tubular 

 rocks, was found to be alvsrays associated with the Crumb-of-Bi'ead 

 sponge (Halichondria panicea) which grew up between and united the 

 hydranths up to the distal ends. Modified hydrorhizse from the Tubu- 

 larian grow into the sponge. The association does not seem to be more 

 than topographical, or epizoic, but it was constant at two stations. 



Genus Corallimorphus. — T. A. Stephenson {Froc. R. Irish Acad., 

 1020, 35, 178-86, 2 pis., 2 figs.). A description of Gorallimorphvs 

 rigidus Moseley from off Ireland. It lives in deep water, and apparently, 

 in correlation with tbat, it has a very thick body-wall and seems 

 immobile. Moseley described it from living material, which appears to 

 have been rigid. What we cannot tell is how changed it was by leaving 

 the deep sea, and, if it was as rigid down there as it is now, how it fed. 

 Hertwig held it as primitive, because of its very weak generalized 

 musculature, but Stephenson emphasizes some characters which he 

 regards as the reverse of primitive. These are the thick body-wall, the 

 preponderance of diameter over height, and the large size : the numerous 

 perfect mesenteries, the specialization of tentacles into two sorts, and of 

 each of them into a head and a stem, and the large size of the nemato- 

 cysts. The generalized musculature is perhaps a survival of primitive- 

 ness, or a degeneration connected with the mode of life in deep water. 



J. A. T. 



Circulation of Water in Renilla. — G. H. Parker {Journ. Exper. 

 Zool., 1920, 31, 343-65, 1 pi., 1 fig.)- In its natural habitat Renilla 

 amethystina contracts and buries itself in the sand as the tide recedes, 

 and expands above the sand when the tide returns. In contraction its 

 volume may be diminished 83 p.c. by the discharge of sea-water. The 

 water enters through the lateral siphonozooids, and possibly in very 

 small amounts through the autozooids, which certainly serve for the 

 entrance of food. It does not enter through the axial siphonozooid or 

 the terminal pore of the peduncle. The water leaves the body by the 

 axial siphonozooid, which normally discharges from time to time. Under 

 high pressure water may also escape through the lateral siphonozooids. 

 the autozooids, or even the terminal pore of the peduncle. Within the 

 body the water that enters by the lateral siphonozooids collects in 

 the inferior canal of the rachis, and passes thence by very fine openings 

 of the peduncular septum from the inferior canal to the superior canal, 

 and thus less directly but more freely out at the axial siphonozooid, or 

 the water is drawn into the colony by the action, probably ciliary, of 

 the lateral siphonozooids and is expelled by general muscular contrac- 

 tion. J- A. T. 



