INVERTEBRATA, CRYPTOGAMIA, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 



553 



Tunicaia, and is only a more or less modified form of the primitive 

 type of larva. 



Affinities of the Polyzoa. — The subject of Professor Allman's 

 Presidential Address to the Linnean Society, on May 24, was, 

 " Eecent Progress in our Knowledge of the Endoproctal Polyzoa," in 

 the course of which he stated that whilst still supporting the mol- 

 luscan affinities of the Polyzoa as the most strongly marked, yet at 

 the same time he could not overlook the fact that recent research had 

 been bringing out features which pointed decidedly in the direction 

 of the Worms. 



Among these, one of the most significant is the presence of a pair 

 of symmetrically placed gland-like organs, recently discovered in 

 Loxosoma. These organs open on the surface of the body, and vividly 

 suggest the well-known " segmental organs " of worms. It is in the 

 Endoprocta (which now include the four genera, PedicelHna, Umatella, 

 Loxosoma, and the curious Ascopodaria discovered by Busk among 

 the collections of the ' Challenger ') that the most decided vermal 

 approximation can be demonstrated. 



Loxosoma.* — The Eev. A. M. Norman, M.A., writes to point 

 out that what he considered tentacular appendages attached to the 

 caudal extremity of a Gephyrean which he described in 1861 

 (dredged in Bantry Bay) were obviously Vogt's Loxosoma phascolo- 

 somatum described in the ' Archives de Zoologie Experimentale,' 

 vol. V. (1877) and 'Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci.' n.s. vol. xvii. (1877). 

 The mistake into which he had fallen is attributable to the fact that 

 in 1861 Loxosoma had never been heard of, nor was any genus known 

 at all like it, added to the fact that the parasite was so firmly attached 

 to the epidermis of the host that it was almost impossible to remove 

 it unmutilated. 



Mr. Norman thinks that now attention has been directed to the 

 subject several other species of the semi-parasitic Polyzoa will be 

 found in British waters. They should be especially looked for on 

 the Annelida, also on Hydrozoa, Sponges, &c. 



Some valuable remarks of Oscar Schmidt f upon the memoirs on 

 Loxosoma are translated in a subsequent number of the ' Annals.' | 



Barbed Hooklets on Spines of a Brachiopod.§ — Dr. Young, of 

 the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, writes that Mr. Thomas Davidson 

 describes on p. 275 and figures in plate xxxiv. of the Supj)lement to 

 his ' Carboniferous Brachiopoda,' now on the eve of publication, 

 some important points in the structure of Spirifera lineata Marten 

 which specimens in his collection revealed. In this species the shell 

 structure is minutely punctate, and the flattened spines, which are 

 usually broken off short, contain in their interior a double canal that 

 terminates upon the outer surface of the shell in a series of double 

 pores. Dr. Young recently found a specimen having the spines in 



* ' Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.,' 5th ser., iii. (1879) p. 133. 



t ' Zeitschr. wiss. Zool.,' xxxi. (1878) p. 68. 



X 'Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.,' iii. (1879) p. 3X3. 



§ 'Nature,' xx. (1879) p. 242. 



