76 QUATREFAGES, ON THE 



abundance of organic bodies are procured, which have been 

 detached from their proper seat bj the action of the sea, such 

 as living arborescent Vorticellce of the genus Carchesium, 

 and Polypes. But heavier minute bodies, as the shells of 

 dead Pohjthalamia are occasionally brought up from the 

 bottom of the sea. With respect to living PolycystintB, he 

 remarks that they are not enclosed in a connected jelly, but 

 that he has seen excessively delicate transparent, distinct 

 filaments, without branches, or joints protruded from the 

 fenestrated shell. These filaments are soft but straight, and it 

 appears as if each filament proceeded from one of the openings 

 in the shell. They resembled the radiating filaments of the 

 jelly in Acanthometra, and of certain infusoria, as Actinophrys, 

 but they were motionless. Within, the shell was always 

 more or less completely filled with a soft, dark-coloured, 

 usually brown substance, which had previously been observed 

 by Ehrenberg in Haliomma. In the Encyrtidium of Messina 

 the substance occupies the interior of the upper part of the 

 shell, or the vault, and is very regularly divided into four 

 lobes, containing' a few clear, round corpuscles. In Dicty- 

 ospyris, when crushed, there are seen in the interior of the 

 shells, cells with: yellowish granular contents. In a form, 

 probably belonging to Haliomma or allied to it, having six 

 spicules disposed in two planes crossing each other at right 

 angles, the slimy matter in the interior of the shell contained 

 both cells with yellowish granular contents 1-240" in size, 

 as well as colourless cells and violet-coloured molecular 

 corpuscles. 



On the Development of the Spermatozoids in Torrea 

 vrTREA. By M. A, de Quatrefages. (' Ann. d. Sc. Nat.' 

 4me Ser. Tom. ii., p. 152.) 



In a memoir on the organs of sense in the Annelids (Ann. d. 

 Sc. Nat, 3e Serie, t. xiii), I designated, under the name of 

 Torrea vitrea, a worm remarkable for the complex nature and 

 the development of the eyes, and the extreme transparency of 

 the tissues. Owing to this favourable circumstance, as well 

 as to the unusual size of the spermatogenous masses, I was 

 enabled at once to observe in it phenomena, of which I have 

 spoken in a note annexed to the report of Milne Edwards on 

 the results of his travels in Sicily (Ann. d. Sc. Nat., 3e Serie, 

 t. iii.), and concerning which I shall now enter more into 

 detail. 



The spermatogenous masses floating in the fluid contained 

 in the general cavity of this Annelid are irregularly ovoid. 



