218 PROCEEDINGS OF THE MALACOLOGICAX SOCIETY. 



Early in the year our indefatigable foreign member, Dr. Dall, re- 

 viewing the " Challenger " monograph on Sjnrula, revived the belief 

 in an adhesive fnnction of the aboral disk of that animal, stating facts ^ 

 which led him to regard it as a mechanical sucker-like organ. He 

 suggests that the species is sedentary and that the exposure of the 

 shell generally observed is due to the animal having been wren died 

 from its attachment, and seeks to thus explain its non-capture in the 

 free state. 



While writing this there reached me a monograph by Dr. Einar 

 Lonnberg, of Upsala, reporting^ upon the examination of a well- 

 preserved iSpinda reticulata in the Zoological Museum of that 

 University, from which he has been able to supplement our knowledge 

 of the anatomy of the genus. He attributes to the aboral papilla 

 and its associated parts a sensory function ; and, moreover, boldly 

 challenges Pelseneer's association of the Spirulas with the CEgopsoids. 

 Admitting them ' ffigopsoids ' so far as their eyes are concerned, he 

 formulates a remarkable argument for thinking them more closely 

 related to the nearest ancestors of the 8epia-Lolujo group, which he 

 forsooth would seek among the Ammonites ! Much curiosity attaches 

 to the considerations upon which he reaches the conclusion that Spirilla, 

 Spirulirostra, lielosepia, Sepia, are not directly related to each other, 

 but " a series of forms in which the development has pursued the 

 same course." 



' Aboral fixation ' has been very much in the malacological air 

 during the year ; for, in addition to the foregoing, Iluedemann has 

 referred to Conularia^ an organism which attached itself by its 

 ' apex ' ; and the limits of probability have been reached in a suggestion 

 of Verrill's ^ that it may be a member of a primitive ancestral form 

 of Dibranchiate Cephalopod, in which the initial secretion of the 

 shell-gland of the veliger-like young served for attachment ! 



Concerning Nautilus, Willey only yesterday laid before the Royal 

 Society a description of the mode of oviposition and of the lipe ova,^ 

 and has published further notes,'^ embodying more particiilarly inter- 

 esting deductions from the study of the nepionic shell, and a recognition 

 of variations which have led him to a belief in a new variety {N. 

 pompilim var. Moreloni). Vayssiere, too, has published' a lengthy 

 memoir on the external characters of the genus ; with especial reference 

 to dimorj)hism and the spadix, unfortunately in apparent ignorance of 

 Haswell's observations,^ the full account of which has meanwhile 

 appeared. 



In December our eyes were startled by the appearance of a paper by 



1 W. H. Dall, Scieuce (n.s.), vol. iii, p. 243. 



* E. Louuberg, Lilljeborc: Festskrift (Upsala, 1896), p. 99. 

 ^ li. lliiedemaim, Amer. Geol., vol. xvii, p. 1-58. 



* A. E. Verrill, Amer. Journ. Sci., ser. IV, vol. ii, p. 80. 

 5 Proc. Roy. Soc, vol. Ix, p. 467. 



^ A. Willey, Quart. Joxiru. Micro. Sci. (n s.), vol. xxxix, pp. 145 and 2'27. 

 ' A. Vayssiere, Auu. Sci. Nat. Zool., ser. VIII, vol. ii, p. 137. 



* W. A. Haswell, Proc. Liun. Soc. New South Wales, ser. II, vol. x, p. 544. 



