88 NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 



Forty-six other species (not new) are also mentioned, and most 

 of them described, four being figured (Madrepora tuhulosa, Ehrbg. ; 

 M.formosa, Dana ; Seriatopora oculata, Ehrbg. ; Epizoanthus cancriso- 

 cius, V. Mart.). 



The last-mentioned form is parasitic on the outside of the shell 

 of a whelk, the interior of which has again for a tenant a species of 

 hermit crab. It is thus described : — Upon a flat bisal membrane, 

 which covers the shell of Buccinum porcatum, Gmel., inhabited by 

 Eupagurus, rise the Polypes, which are 5-10 mm. high, and 4-7 

 mm. in diameter, at distances varying from 5-11 mm. They are 

 ^principally on the dorsal side of the shell ; the ventral side, which 

 touches the ground by the motion of the Pagurus, having none. The 

 whole of the basal membrane is penetrated with fine angular grains 

 of sand, which consist for the greater part of quartz and a black 

 hornblende. The spongy coeneuchyma comjiletely absorbs the shell 

 substance, and entirely takes its place. Even the spire consists of 

 ccenenchyma impregnated with sand, excepting a small remainder, 

 which is represented by a thin film of cLalk. The tentacle disk of 

 the naked polype is circular, the mouth small, and with two lips ; on 

 the circumference of the disk rise two circles of tentacles, the inner 

 of which contains the largest tentacles. These are cylindrical, short, 

 and not attaining the length of the circumference of the disk. Each 

 circle contains twenty-four tentacles. The continuation of the body 

 cavities of the polypes is formed by a fine network of canals which 

 penetrate through the layer of ccenenchyma. From the bases of 

 each polype further spread twenty-four canals as direct continuations 

 of the chambers ; after a short course, they lose themselves in a 

 network of anastomosing canals, leaving only small spaces between, 

 which are filled up with firm masses of ccenenchyma ; they sjiread 

 over the whole basal membrane. The colony when alive was rose 

 red in colour. Six specimens of this beautiful form were taken in a 

 drag net south of the Cape of Good Hope, in lat. 34° 13' 6" S., and 

 long. 15° 0' 7" E., at 117 fathoms depth.* 



Parthenogenesis in Bees. — According to a theory of M. Dzierzon 

 developed by Professor Siebold, the eggs from which drone bees are 

 produced, are deposited without fecundation by the queen, who can 

 'fecundate them or leave them unfertilized, according as they are in- 

 tended to produce females or males. M. Perez has recently discussed 

 the subject in a note to the French Academy,| in which he says, " Accord- 

 ing to a classical theory, which had its birth in Germany and which 

 no one now-a-days disputes, a fecundated egg of the queen bee is a 

 female egg, and all unfecundated eggs of the queen bee are male. 

 Tlie mother bee, it is said, can even lay at will an egg of one or the 

 other sex. This faculty, which is exceptional in the animal king- 

 dom, is explained by assuming that the bee, at the moment of the 

 passage of the egg iiito the oviduct, can ajiply to it or not a certain 

 quantity of the seminal fluid contained in the seminal recei)tacle. 

 Nevertheless, the organization of the generative apparatus of tlie bee 



* ' Monatsbcriclit d. Kongl. Preuss. Akad.,' 1878, July-Aug., p. 524. 

 t ' Coraptea Kendus,' vol. Ixxxvii. p. 408. 



