322 Clironides of Science. [A-pril, 



whicli occupies the centre of the branching tube, in the free ends of 

 which the polypides hve. This rod spreads out below the particular 

 cavity occupied by an individual, and there gives attachment to 

 the " funicuhis " which attaches the polyzoon to its tube. Another 

 remarkable thing is that the polypides are hippocrepian ; but still 

 more important and new is the presence of a convex body on each 

 side of the lophophore, which Professor x\Uman compares to the 

 mantle of the Lamellibranchs ; and he proceeds to show, by two 

 most instructive diagrams, that the resemblance between the Polyzoa 

 and the Lamellibranchs is closer than between them and the 

 Brachiopods, to which they have so frequently of late years been 

 assimilated. 



Tlie simplest hiving Forms. — In the ' Quarterly Journal of 

 Microscopical Science ' for October, Professor Huxley described the 

 viscid substance which abounds everywhere in the mud of the , 

 Atlantic bottom, ginng to it its sticky character, and containing the 

 small ovoid bodies known as coccohths — and gave to this substance 

 the name of Batliyhius, regarding it as an organism probably hving 

 by absorption of mineral matter, but not to be certainly referred 

 either to plants or animals. In the same Journal a most interesting 

 paper, by Ernst Haeckel, of Jena, the renowned author of the 

 ' Eadiolarien,' and of the ' Morphology of the Organism,' is being 

 published, in which the very lowest forms of animal life — or of life 

 at all — are described — Protogenes, Protomya?a, Protomseba, and 

 others, forming the group Monera— minute bits of living jelly, 

 devoid of all structure, of nucleus, or vacuole, but capable of most 

 active movement, embracing solid food, and digesting it ; and at 

 times becoming encysted, and breaking up into spores or gemmules, 

 which grow in time into adult Monera. 



Deep-sea Dredgings. — Naturalists have suddenly been aroused 

 to the importance of investigating the fauna of the deepest sea- 

 bottoms with the dredge. Soundings no longer are to be considered 

 satisfactory, but " the dredge, with its iron edge, and mystical tri- 

 angle " is to explore the ocean-floor at depths of a mile or two. The 

 results obtained by Loven and Sars incited Professor Wyvillc Thom- 

 son and Dr. Carpenter to a like exploration — their results are 

 most important in what relates to the temperature of the deeper 

 currents. Dr. E. P. Wright's little excursion ofi' Portugal, where 

 he dredged in 600 fathoms, produced some interesting fiicts, besides 

 the confirmation of Bolagc's discovery of HyaJonema ; especially as 

 to the presence of a shark and of Chiasmodon at these de[)ths. On 

 what do these fishes feed? The American dredgings, however, 

 promise to be the most interesting, and the most fully carried out. 

 The Superintendent of the Coast Sui-vey (why have we not one 

 likewise in England ?) no sooner perceives the importance of the-so 

 dredgings than he arranges for deep-sea dredgings in the region of 



