744 RECORD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



languages we find tlie masculine form, so that the well-known 

 " Cestum Veneris " should be " Cesfus Veneris." 



Of the Beroidas forty-five species and some eight genera have 

 been described by various zoologists ; this number is apparently due 

 to the great difference in characters which may be found to obtain 

 between forms at various stages of development, while some exhibit 

 a great tendency towards variation, and it seems to the author that 

 quite a third of the species have been formed on differences in pigmen- 

 tation. To take an example : from the common Beroe ovata of the 

 Mediterranean, Idijia roseola (western coast of North America), B. 

 cucumis (Greenland, Norway, and Baffin's Bay), B. capensis and B. 

 punctata (Cape of Good Hope and Azores) and B. macrostomus 

 (Pacific and Indian Oceans) differ too slightly to form other species. 

 In the Gulf of Naples Chun finds Beroe ovata and B. ForsJcdlii. 

 The paper is illustrated by one plate. 



Protozoa. 



Eozoon Canadense. — An excellent abstract of the chief points of 

 Dr. K. Mobius's recent monograph on " The Structure of Eozoon 

 Canadense compared with that of the Foraminifera," appears in 

 ' Nature,' * copiously illustrated with nineteen woodcuts. 



Dr. Carpenter also announces j" that he has in preparation (in 

 conjunction with Professor Dawson) a full and complete memoir on 

 Eozoon, based upon investigations far more comprehensive (he 

 considers) than those of Professor Mobius. It will necessarily 

 occupy considerable time in consequence of the elaborate illustrations 

 it will require. And in the meantime Dr. Carpenter makes some 

 brief remarks on that part of the discussion which relates to the so- 

 called " canal-system." 



Among the numerous figures given by Mobius of sections of the 

 " canal-system," there is not one which represents what Dr. Carpenter 

 described and figured, when he last wrote on the subject,^ as " what 

 appears to be the typical mode of its distribution." Nor is this 

 brought out in any of the small number of figures given of the internal 

 casts obtained by decalcification, though, in fact, it is only when the 

 sections are interpreted by such solid models, that the real forms and 

 relations of these " canal systems " can be made out. 



Having been furnished by Professor Dawson with numerous 

 specimens obtained from different localities and in different states of 

 mineralization, he is now able to assert with confidence that the 

 peculiar distribution described and figured by him from the actual 

 specimens five years ago, is the regular and characteristic " canal 

 system " of Eozoon. His cabinet now contains hundreds of ex- 

 amples of it, both in transparent sections and in the solid models ob- 

 tained by decalcification ; and these last, in partially " dolomitized " 

 specimens, show the following singular peculiarities, which do not 

 seem to have fallen under Professor Mobius's observation. When a 

 band of dolomite runs through the calcite layers, (1) the " canal 



* ' Nature,' XX. (1879) pp. 272, 297- t Ibid., p. 328. 



1 ' Aun. and Mag. Nat. Hist.,' June 1874, pi. xis. 



