LINNEAX SOCIETY OF LONDON". 



February 4tli, 1897. 



Dr. A. GtJNTHEB, P.R.S., President, in the Chair, 



The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 



Messrs. J. H. Barrage and F. Escombe were admitted, and 

 Messrs. Samuel Heniy Drew, John Melvin Lowson, Walter 

 Smyth, and Eev. Eobert Usher were elected Fellows of the 

 Society. 



Prof. G. B. Howes exhibited the egg-case of Chimcera Colliei 

 and some eggs of Bdellostoma sp., which he had received from 

 his friend Dr. Bashford Dean, of Columbia University, N.T., who, 

 during a recent trijj to I'uget Sound and Pacific Grrove, Calif., 

 had obtained material for the full study of the development of 

 both species. He also laid upon the table a specimen of Ohimcera 

 Colliei, and of Bdellostoma cirrJiatum with ripe ova. The egg- 

 case of ChimcBra was known hitherto only from a specimen 

 obtained by Green on the West coast of Ireland, aod recognized 

 as such by Dr. Giinther in 1889. Conceruing the Bdellostoma 

 egg, the study of development of the Myzichthye^ had a special 

 interest that evening, in its association with a brilliant investi- 

 gation of Nanseu, then in London. The interest of the study of 

 the Myxinoid egg-case had been quite recently revived by some 

 observations on that of Bd. Bisclioffi by Plate in the Sitzb. 

 Gesellsch. uaturf . Freunde zu Berlin. Plate had found the " oper- 

 cular annulus " absent at the " vegetative pole '"' in 3 of 34 eggs 

 examined ; and in that of Bd. sp., upon the table, it was also 

 absent. The interest of the general morphology of the Subclass, 

 always intense, had been enhanced to an even unexpected degree 

 in recent enquiry by Ayers and Price into numerical variation 

 and metamorphosis of the branchial apparatus, by £emon into 

 the excretory organs, and by Nussbaum into the Seessel's 

 diverticulum of the developing gnathostome. The results of 

 Dr. Bashford Dean's investigations would therefore be awaited 

 by morphologists with impatience. 



Some remarks were made by the President, chiefly in connection 

 with the egg-case of CMmasra monstrosa obtained on the West 

 coast of Ireland ; and by Mr. J. T. Cunningham, of the Marine 

 Biological Laboratory, Plymouth, who was present as a visitor. 



The following papers were read : — 



1. "A Eevision of the Tribe Nauclece (N'at. Ord. Bubiacece).^* 

 By George Darby Haviland, M.A., M.B., F.L.S. 



2. " A Contribution to the History of New-Zealand Echino- 

 derms." By H. Farquhar. (Communicated by Thos. W. Kirk, 

 F.L.S.) 



