162 The Microscope. 



England are varied in form and rich in number. They are as 

 different from those of Europe as the fauna of our bays and sound* 

 is different from the European. We have few descriptions of these 

 larval animals from our waters, and so different are they from the 

 European that it is hard, almost impossible, to identify them. Shall 

 we give these undoubted larvae new names which shall be pro- 

 visional, or shall we delay publication until we have traced them ta 

 the adults? Something is to be said in favor of both courses, but a 

 description of a new stage of a larva by one observer may attract 

 the attention of another naturalist, and fit into a series of obser- 

 vations otherwise complete, thus leading to a discovery which neither 

 alone could possibly make from the material at his command. 



The object of the present paper is to record a brief notice of 

 an unknown larva of peculiar morphology, found in the Bay of 

 Fundy. Its general affinities are apparent and will be spoken of 

 later, but its special relationship is unknown. It is hoped that this 

 mention may meet the eyes of those interested in the study of the 

 metamorphosis of the marine animals of the United States, and 

 attract the attention of some one who may be able to add to oui* limited 

 knowledge of it. No more interesting questions can at present be 

 raised, as far as the determination of the facies of our marine fauna 

 is concerned, than those which deal with the identification of the 

 larval forms of life which inhabit the populous waters of our coast. 



A number of naturalists have expressed the belief that the larvae 

 of some annelids are closely related to the young of certain bry- 

 ozoa, and have supposed that the phylogenetic history of the two 

 groups is closely interwoven. A young Chgetopod, which combines 

 many characters of the larvae of the Bryozoa, is called Mitraria. 

 While several of the features which distinguish this larva are 

 undoubtedly secondary modifications, and are of little phylogenetic 

 importance, the general form of mitraria is believed to approach 

 closely the prototype or ancestral form of both the chaetopods and 

 bryozoa, if not of the brachiopods and other related groups. It is 

 the purpose of the present paper to consider the form of a larva 

 allied to Mitraria from the Bay of Fundy, and to call attention to 

 the interest attached to the study of this interesting animal. . 



A true Mitraria has never been described from the coasts of 

 North America. I have found specimens of this genus at the 

 Bermudas and at Santa Cruz, California, but neither of these have 

 been figured or described. No other naturalist has recorded Mitraria 

 from American waters, and but few have found it in European seas. 



