890 KECORD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



No better idea can be given of tlie value of tliis extraordinary 

 collection than by stating tbat there are described iu this list no less 

 than forty-four new species. At the time of the publication of 

 Agassiz's ' Eevision of the Echini,' there were scarcely over two 

 hundred species of Echini known, and since that time less than fifty 

 species have been added to the list. In the specific diagnosis of the 

 species only the principal localities are given ; the details are re- 

 served for the full report, which we believe is iu good progress, 

 many of the requisite illustrations being already engraved. 



Anal Plates of Echinocidaris.* — Professor F. Jeifrey Bell draws 

 attention to the fact that the number of anal j^lates iu this genus is 

 not so constantly four as the student would be led to think from the 

 statements made by all the writers who have defined it ; it was first 

 noticed by Professor Alex. Agassiz, that a specimen of E. Dufresnii 

 might have five anal plates, while Mr. Bell's observations show that 

 the number not only varies in the species in question, but in other 

 si:»ecies also of the same group ; and that tlie variation may not be 

 confined to these being only one more in number, but that there may 

 be as few as three, and as many as six, or even ten ; in those examples 

 in which there were six or ten, it is curious to note that two of the 

 anal plates retain the characteristic form of a right-angled triangle, 

 and together occupy about one-half the anal area. From the figures 

 given by Professor Bell, it would seem that the variations are ex- 

 hibited in nine out of fifty-four specimens examined. 



In a further pajjer f Mr. Bell describes and figures the dentary 

 apparatus of three species of the genus Tripneustes, which exhibit 

 gradational characters of apparently considerable importance in the 

 determination of species. 



Ccelenterata. 



Phylogeny of the Ctenophora.i — Professor Haeckel has recently 

 read to the Jena Society (16 May, 1879) an imjDortant paper on this 

 subject ; the notice has for its basis a new form of the Anthomedusae 

 to which Haeckel has given the name of Gtenaria ctenopJiora. 



The author commences by pointing out that the morphological 

 characters of the Coelenterata are such as to lead to a firm belief in 

 their common ancestry ; these, which are best seen in the Hydrome- 

 duste, have not been quite so obvious as regards the Ctenophora ; the 

 majority of modern zoologists have associated them more or less inti- 

 mately with the Anthozoa, but so long ago as 1866, Professor Haeckel 

 suggested that they were more closely allied to the Hydrozoa, and this 

 view later observations, but more especially those now to be recorded, 

 considerably support. The Pacific form under investigation is regarded 

 as being intermediate between the Gemmaria-like Anthomedusfe and 

 the Cydippoid Ctenophora ; the whole result may be summed uj) in 

 saying that the Ctenophora appear to have been developed from the 

 Anthomedusas, and especially from the family of the Cladonemida?. 



A most interesting part of the paper is a review of the more 



* ' Proc. Zool. Soc.,' 1879, p. 436. t Loc. cit., p. 655. 



X ' Kosmos," ill. (1879) Part 5. 



