A GENERAL NOTICE OF THE BIOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 1x 
On the whole the naturalists, with the possible exception of Sir Charles 
Khot, K.C.M.G., who have contributed to these reports, do not appear to have 
been struck by any resemblance between the faunas of the North and South 
Poles, and it was therefore with some astonishment that I received late last year 
an important memoir, by Professor Théel, urging the evidences of “ bipolarity ” 
manifested by the Priapulids and Sipunculids collected by the Swedish Antarctic 
Expedition. To this, of course, I can here only draw attention. 
It may be remembered that one of the first objects of interest in the whole 
collection was the ten-legged Pyenogonid or sea spider found by Mr. Hodgson ; 
it was a curious illustration of the lacunar knowledge of zoologists that it was 
some time before a person was found who knew that a ten-legged sea spider 
had been discovered many years ago by Mr. Eights, and described by him under 
the quite unintelligible name of Decolopoda. But, although the form from off 
Victoria Land has ten legs, it differs in no other important point from the 
common genus Nymphon, while Eights’s genus, which had marked peculiarities, 
was found by the Charcot Expedition in another part of the Antarctic. 
It may be observed that there are striking differences between the fauna of 
the area explored by English and that examined by French, German, and Swedish 
navigators, but the time for an explanation of these has hardly yet come. 
Most of the contributors to the biological volumes bear names well known 
to zoologists or botanists; it has been to me an especial privilege that I have 
had the opportunity of introducing to zoological work and zoological workers 
Mr. C. F. Jenkin, who is now Professor of Engineering in the University of Oxford. 
Common treatment has been followed in the nomenclature of both plants and 
animals. 
F, JEFFREY BELL. 
British Museum (Naturau History), 
Department of Zoology. 
VOL. VI. h 
