162 Prof. M‘Intosh’s Notes from the 
perform, seeing that the coelomic fluid is present in every 
branchial filament. | 
The effects of inbreeding can hardly affect the reproductive 
processes of this species, since the sperms are widely dis- 
- tributed in the water and fertilise, it may be, different ova 
either in the ccelom or in the free condition, whilst the buds 
form a further check of importance. Notwithstanding the 
wide range of the sperms shed by such forms in the sea, the 
question of hybridization does not appear to arise—indeed, 
no more than in the case of the cod, haddock, and pleuro- 
nectids which meet on the bréeing-grounds. 
Reversion or atavism appears to have little to support it 
in the case of Filograna, though the occurrence of a few 
with opercula in a race usually devoid of them may be held 
by some to indicate this feature, especially as the development 
of this organ seems to be less connected with the environ- 
ment. If such organs appeared in a bud—that is, indepen- 
dently of sexual reproduction,—it might show that the tissues 
of nurse-stock and bud were imbued with an inherent 
continuity of plasm, which in function may remain latent 
or intermittently burst forth in the formation of such organs, 
just as the reappearance of coloured longitudinal stripes takes 
place in young feral pigs. Particular crosses may also favour 
the appearance or disappearance of opercula, enlarged tips to 
branchiz, or other features in succeeding gencrations : as 
Darwin says “ That a being should be born resembling in 
certain characters an ancestor removed by two or three, and 
in some cases by hundreds or even thousands of generations, 
is assuredly a wonderful fact.” As Filograna is herma- 
phrodite the so-calied secondary sexual characters have a 
more direct line of transmission. 
Whether the variations noted are hereditary is still an 
open question, though it would appear that in some cases at 
least these are not sufficiently stable to lead to the formation 
of species. Certainly Filograna is under ‘* conditions of 
life incessantly inducing fresh variability ” (Darwin), and 
thus, perhaps, has a check to inheritance in the ordinary 
sense of the term. Perhaps the species falls under the 
group in which selection has not been applied, and thus 
distinct races or even species have not been conspicuously 
formed ; certainly it is difficult to see how natural selection 
affects Kilograna to any extent. he variability in this 
species is not due to crossing, food, climate, or inbreeding. 
}t is inherent, 
—— 
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