544 Meeting of the British Association. | Oct., 
the Echinodermata, and showed that many minute details in the 
skeleton were valuable as differentiz. 
A letter from Dr. Carpenter was read with reference to the 
specimens of Comatula procured for him by Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys 
in the Hybrides. ‘The number of dorsal cirrhi in the specimens of 
C. rosacea was much larger than he had elsewhere observed, whilst 
the specimens of C. celtica were exceedingly fine, almost leading to 
the belief that they were stunted forms of the splendid C. Eschrichti 
of Iceland. The presence of very many attached Foraminifera 
and zoophytes on the Comatulz# confirmed Dr. Carpenter in his 
opinion expressed in his unpublished memoir, in the hands of the 
Royal Society, that the adult Comatula is essentially a stationary 
animal. 
Mr. Ray Lankester described the anatomy and asexual reproduc- 
tion of Chetogaster, a minute worm, one-eighth of an inch long, which 
clings by hooklets to the bodies of water-snails. He showed that 
the budding and giving off fresh worms by growth from behind 
(so that chains of from four to sixteen worms occur) was in this 
case the result of the tendency to produce three abdominal and one 
cephalic segment, which the fourth segment always possessed. The 
most remarkable points in the anatomy of the worm were the very 
small number of segments constituting an individual—the broad 
terminal mouth and oral bristles—and the absence of cilia in the 
whole organism. Professor Huxley said he had observed many of 
the points mentioned by Mr. Lankester himself, and could speak to 
his accuracy. He would suggest a comparison between Chetogaster 
and Sagitta ; he was inclined to consider it as an immature form. 
Mr. Henry Woodward, of the British Museum, brought forward 
an interesting classification of a branch of the Crustacea, in his paper 
“On the Structure of Limulus, Recent and Fossil.” He associated 
the great Hurypterus and Pterygotus with the king-crabs of the 
present day, connecting them by the Limuloid crustaceans of the 
carboniferous strata, some forms of which he was the first to de- 
scribe. He drew a parallel between the Decapodous crustaceans 
and this group. The Hurypteri represented the Macroura; the 
Limuloids and Hemiaspis, the Anomoura; while Limulus itself, 
first appearing as early as oolitic strata, represented the Brachyoura. 
Mr. Woodward had very carefully worked out the number and 
fusion of somites in the head, thorax, and abdomen of the Limulus 
itself, and those crustacea he wished to rank with it. Professor 
Huxley thought that the Eurypterida must be kept distinct from 
the other crustacea, 
Dr. Ransom, of Nottingham, read a paper “On the Structure and 
Growth of the Ovarian Ovum in Gasterosteus Leiurus,” the result 
of very careful study and observation. Dr. Ransom regards the 
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