934 RECORD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



have ever been met witli fossil except iu Australia, it would seem, so 

 far as tliis evidence goes, that the Australian Polyzoan fauna was as 

 peculiar to that region iu the Miocene period as it is at the present day. 

 The si)ccies all seem to have changed, it is true, but they do not appear 

 to have either advanced or retrograded, since, according to Mr. Wilson, 

 the Miocene fossil forms may be classified in the same groups as those 

 of the present time. 



This communication appears to me of the highest interest palsBon- 

 tologically, and it is much to be wished that we should have carefully 

 drawn figures as well as descriptions of the forms mentioned, as in 

 things so similar, verbal descriptions are insufi&cient fur any critical 

 pur2)0se." 



Recent and Fossil Species of Australian Selenariadse.* — The 

 Eev. J. E. Tenison- Woods gives a short review of the Selenariadse, 

 a family of Polyzoa, and then proceeds to describe several new 

 sjjecies of Lunulites and Selenaria, both recent and fossil. He con- 

 siders the genus Cupularia of Busk a superfluity and unites it with 

 the genus Lunulites, believing that Cwpularia cannot even be main- 

 tained as a subgenus, as the same individual may sometimes have the 

 features of Ciqndaria in one part and those of Lunulites in another. 



This family is only represented by a few living species iu the 

 northern hemisphere, where, however, it was abundant in the Cainozoic 

 and Neozoic periods, and the adlitiou of twelve new species, of which 

 four are recent, is an imj^ortant addition to our knowledge of the 

 family. All the sjpecies are well figured in two good lithographed 

 plates, 



Arthropoda. 

 a. lusecta. 



Undefined Faculty in Insects.f — M. J. H. Fabre recalls the fact 

 that Ammopldla (Sand-wasp), boring its mine until a late hour of the 

 day, abandons its work, after having closed the opening with a stone, 

 goes to a distance, and yet knows how to return next day to its home, 

 though the localities may be new and unknown. Bemhex also has a 

 similar power. Where human observation and memory are defective, 

 their coup d'oeil and remembrance have a certainty which is all but infal- 

 lible. It may be said that there is in an insect something more subtle 

 than the simple faculty of remembering — a kind of intuition of 

 localities without analogy in man — and in order, if possible, to throw 

 some light on this point M. Fabre instituted a series of experiments. 



The first experiment was with twelve females of Cerceris tubercu- 

 lata, which were caught, marked, enclosed sej^arately in a box, and 

 released in the fields two kilometres from the nests. They all went 

 iu a direct line towards their nests, and five hours later two were 

 found there, and a third and a fourth soon followed. 



* Teiiison-Woods, J. E., " On some Eeccnt aud Fossil Si^ecies of Australiim 

 Selcnaiiaila3 (Polyzoa)," ' Traus. Pliil. Soc. of Adelaide,' ISSU. 



t Fabre, J. H., ' Souveuirs entomologiques. Etudes sur riustinct et les 

 uioeuis des Iiiscctes.' :-;2i jip. (8vo, Paris, 1879.) See 'Eutouiol. Mou. Mag.,' 

 xyii. (1880) pp. 100-2. 



