1 78 Miscellaneous. 



and offers remarkable possibilities for discover)'. The same branch 

 of marine research has been prosecuted for many years on the shores 

 of the North Sea and the Mediterranean, and a large number of 

 larvae, known to be such, but which have as yet not been raised into 

 adults, have been described and figured. Tliis provisional nomen- 

 clature of a larval animal known to be such has been a means of 

 attracting the attention of other naturalists to the larva, aud in 

 many instances has led to the discovery of the adult. 



The larval forms of marine animals of the coast of New England 

 are varied in form and rich in number. They are as diflerent from 

 those of Europe as the fauna of our bays and sounds 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 larvte new names which shall be provisional, or shall we 

 delay publication until we have traced them to the adults ? Some- 

 thing is to be said in favour 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 observations 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 afiinities 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 metamor- 

 phosis of the marine animals of the United States, and attract the 

 attention of some one who may be able to add to our limited know- 

 ledge of it. No more interesting questions can at present be raised, 

 60 far as the determination of the facies of our marine fauna is con- 

 cerned, 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 Bryozoa, 

 and have supposed that the phylogenetic history of the two groups 

 is closely interwoven. A young Chaetopod, 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 the 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 Mi- 

 traria 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 Ber- 

 mudas 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. 



