Soo DISCOVERY REPORTS 



horseshoe-shaped structures are incipient ovicells. In any case it appears from Busk's 

 description of them as cavities in the calcareous frontal wall that they are very different 

 in nature from the bands in the body-cavity of Carbasea pisciformis. 



Waters (1904, p. 21) described a pair of vermiform bodies in one of the varieties of 

 Camptoplites bicornis. (Kluge has shown that Bugida bicornis Waters comprised three 

 varieties, but not the typical form; see Kluge, 1914, pp. 619, 622, 623 for synonymy.) 

 Waters described them as arising from the frontal membrane and regarded them as part 

 of the Polyzoan, and " undoubtedly equivalent to the gland-like body " to which he had 

 frequently referred. His paper on gland-like bodies (1892) does not, however, show 

 anything very much like them, and chiefly describes undoubted organs of the Polyzoa 

 such as the paired opercular glands and the vestigial polypides of avicularia. In 1909 

 (p. 132) and 1913 (pp. 474, 476) Waters recorded similar vermiform bodies in various 

 members of the Scrupocellariidae and regarded them as in some way to do with the 

 testis. 



Palk (191 1), working at Naples, described similar bodies in Carbasea papyrea (Pall.) 

 which she treated as synonymous with C. carbasea Ell. & Sol. They were attached by 

 one end to the frontal membrane "outside the occlusor muscles", and were very 

 variable in shape, being variously coiled, looped and sometimes constricted. She found 

 something in the nature of an epithelial wall and a coiled, thread-like contents to the 

 tube. In mass the threads suggested spermatozoa, but when teased out they appeared 

 to form a continuous cord with darkly staining dots at intervals. The vermiform bodies 

 were present in zooecia both with and without spermatic tissue, and were largest in 

 those with brown bodies. 



In external appearance Palk's bodies closely resemble those that I have found in 

 several species of Antarctic Polyzoa, but I have no reason to think that my material has 

 the thread-like internal structures. I have not, however, cut sections, and the material 

 was preserved in spirit without special fixation. 



In the collections discussed in this report I have noted the presence of vermiform 

 bodies in the zooecia of some specimens of Notoplites drygalskii, N. vanhoffeni, 

 N. tenuis, Menipea flagellifera, Camptoplites giganteus and Beania magellanica. They are 

 not to be seen in every zooecium nor in every specimen. Except in B. magellanica, 

 where their position is relatively constant, they do not appear to have an exactly fixed 

 position in the zooecium. 



In B. magellanica they are short and lie one on each side of the polypide at about the 

 middle of the length of the zooecium, one frequently being a little more distally placed 

 than the other. 



Those that I have seen in Menipea flagellifera are single and stout, very irregularly 

 placed in the zooecium and variously coiled. 



In one specimen of Notoplites tennis single, straight, rather stout bodies are to be seen 

 in zooecia in which the body cavity contains great quantities of spermatic tissue, and 

 in another specimen single ones of similar form are present in zooecia with brown bodies 

 or with polypide buds. 



In N. drygalskii and N. vanhqffeni they may much resemble those shown in Palk's 



