294 NATURAL SCIENCE. May. 



Supposed Remarkable Sea-anemones. 



Every one who is interested in the anatomy of Coelentera must 

 remember the description of figures given by Danielssen of the 

 remarkable actiniarian genera Fenja and Aegir. It was said that 

 these forms possessed a tubular alimentary canal passing from the 

 mouth to the other end of the body, where it terminated in an anus. 

 This remarkable feature, together with others which it is not necessary 

 to particularise, upset all the current definitions of the Actiniaria and 

 indeed of the Coelentera. It placed an insuperable difficulty in the 

 way of accepting well-known views of the origin of the triploblastic 

 alimentary canal, and in other respects led to modifications in our 

 ideas of invertebrate morphology. 



F. E. Schultze and others expressed doubts of the facts described; 

 but the weight of Danielssen's knowledge and experience prevailed, 

 and the genera have found their way into many recently published 

 text-books of zoology. 



Dr. A. Appellof has recently re-examined the original specimens 

 in the Bergen Museum, and the result is that the whole castle of facts 

 and fancies comes crashing to the ground. He proves conclusively 

 that Fenja and Aegir are but injured, macerated, and introverted 

 specimens of Halcampoides claviis, and that the species H. ahyssonim 

 which came from the same locality is but a synonym of the older 

 species. 



Thus ends this ten years' controversy, and a great error is removed 

 from the pages of zoology. 



Zoology at Bergen. 



Dr. Appellof's paper is published in the Year-book of the 

 Bergen Museum for 1896, which besides the official reports, alluded 

 to elsewhere, contains many interesting communications. 



Mr. O. Nordgaard has proved by experiment, that though the 

 eggs of salmon and sea-trout can be fertilised and hatched in water 

 with a salinity of as much as '9 per cent., they are all killed by a 

 salinity of 2 per cent. 



The same worker concludes his systematic list of Norwegian 

 marine Bryozoa : in this part he enumerates the Cyclostomata, of 

 which he includes twenty-four species belonging to nine genera. 

 None of them are new. Mr. Jas. A. Grieg discusses in detail the 

 affinities of Funiculina and Kophohelemnon two genera of Pennatulids. 

 He also insists on the close relationship of Funiculina and Leptoptilum, 

 the latter one of the genera founded on material collected by the 

 " Challenger": Grieg does not, however, at present propose to merge 

 Leptoptilum. The most interesting general question considered in 

 the paper, is as to the possibility of some of the northern and 

 southern species being identical. 



Mr. Grieg also gives a useful list of the Mollusca (194 species) 



