l888.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 3 



of the sandy bottom, in the shallow waters where they are seen 

 to spawn. 



On account of the opportunity of seeing it alive, in its native 

 haunts, I have been interested in Sycotypus, especially since July 

 just passed. My first living specimen was presented by Mr. 

 Dufifield Prince, who captured it in the Wallkill, a branch of 

 Flatlands Creek, near Coney Island. My second living specimen 

 was presented by Mr. Stephen Williamson, of Gravesend, Long 

 Island, and was also captured near the place mentioned above. 

 This is the specimen exhibited at the present time. The shell 

 is unusually large, measuring 6 yiinches long, by ^h inches broad. 

 This specimen was spawning at the time of capture. The " neck- 

 lace " of egg-capsules, fourteen inches long, also here exhibited, 

 was partially extruded ; each fully-formed capsule containing a 

 number of eggs. I have also been kindly presented with a num- 

 ber of specimens by the Hon. E. G. Blackford, Chief of our 

 State Fishery Commission. 



The Radula. — This organ of mollusks known by the names, 

 "tongue," "palate," "lingual rilihon," "lingual membrane," 

 " odontophore," or " radula," has always been interesting to 

 microscopists on account of its singular mechanism and beautiful 

 form. It is so universally present in the univalve mollusks that, 

 in modern works of any extent, mention of its form at least is 

 expected, if its dentition is not figured, under every important 

 genus. 



Prof. E. Ray Lankester, in the ninth edition of " The Ency- 

 clopaedia Britannica," divides all the groups of Mollusca into two 

 main branches — (i) Lipocephala, or headless ; with the head- 

 region undeveloped, no cephalic eyes, and the buccal cavity de- 

 void of biting, rasping, or prehensile organs ; containing only 

 one class, the Latnellibranchia, including the mussels, oysters, 

 cockles and clams. (2) G^/d?y.f^//^(?ra, the tongue-bearing mollusks; 

 having not only a " well-developed head, but a special aggresive 

 organ in connection with the mouth which on account of its re- 

 markable nature, and the peculiarities of the details of its mech- 

 anism, seems to indicate a very close genetic connection between 

 all such animals as possess it." In the Glossophora he includes 

 the three great classes. Gasteropoda, Scaphopoda and Cephalopoda, 

 intimating that as a rule, all the numerous orders of the Glosso- 

 phora possess the radula. 



