ALLMAN, ON POLYZOA. 41 
the decay of the coencecium, these attached statoblasts, which 
seem to have been noticed under similar circumstances by 
Dumortier and Van Beneden, may be seen adherent to the 
stone or other body on which the specimen had developed 
itself, and to which they are now connected in lines through 
the medium of a portion of the old cell in which they had 
been produced. The development and product of these 
attached statoblasts do not appear to have been as yet 
noticed. 
The true nature of these curious reproductive bodies is 
not very evident. Professor Allman regards them as being 
manifestly of the nature of a bud, or gemma, peculiarly 
encysted, and destined to remain for a period quiescent, or 
in a pupa-like state. 
He then proceeds to notice some points of comparison 
between these bodies and the so-termed winter-eggs in the 
Rotifera and ephippial ova of Daphnia, which, it is to be 
observed, however, have been shown by Mr. Lubbock to be, 
not gemme, but true ova, produced in the ovary, though 
possibly without the aid of male impregnation. 
It deserves remark, with respect to these bodies, that 
nothing of a similar kind has yet been noticed in any of the 
marine Polyzoa. The phenomenon, therefore, of their pro- 
duction in the fresh-water forms only, would seem to belong 
to the now long category of similar occurrences in other 
inhabitants of fresh water, whose continued existence in case 
of drought, and perhaps of extreme cold and other casualties, 
is provided for by the existence, at certain seasons, and under 
certain conditions of the so termed winter ova in the case of 
animals, and of hypnospores in the case of numerous alge. 
In this point of view, therefore, mere external resemblance, 
which would necessarily in some cases flow from their being 
destined to fulfil a similar office, need not be taken, as 
remarked by Professor Allman, in comparing the statoblasts 
of the Polyzoa with the ephippial ova of Daphnia, to indicate 
a greater share of significance in this resemblance than it 
really deserves. 
Professor Allman’s views, with respect to the whole subject 
of reproduction in the Polyzoa, are of high interest, and the 
more especially, as he states, with respect to the so termed 
“law of alternation of generation.” We will, therefore, 
transcribe what he says on this point: 
“ We have first, as the immediate result of the development of the ovum, 
a ciliated sac-like embryo, resembling in form and habit an infusorial ani- 
malcule: it is a non-sexual zooid. From this is produced subsequently, by 
a process of gemmation, another form of zooid, namely, the polypide, with 
