482 Miscellaneous. 



Thouarella antarctica, from the Falkland Islands. 

 By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. &c. 



This species was first described by M. Valenciennes in the ' Voyage 

 of the Venus,' t. ii. f. 2, from a specimen found by Admiral Dupetit 

 Thenars in the Falkland Islands. The British Museum has lately 

 received, by the kindness of Capt. Henry Toinbee, of the Meteoro- 

 logical Office, a very fine specimen of this species (which shows that 

 the one figured by Valenciennes must have been in a very imperfect 

 state), which was obtained by Capt. James Clark, R.N.R. (now 

 Captain of the 'Western Empire'), when dredging, on a calm day, 

 off Burwood Bank, lat. 54° 27' S., long. 59° 40' W., in 45 fathoms, 

 on the 1st of January 1872. 



The corals were brought up in great abundance. The specimen 

 sent by Capt. Clark to the Museum consists of five similar branches 

 of very unequal length, the longest being 18 inches long, and of an 

 elongate cylindrical shape, each being surrounded by very numerous 

 club-shaped branchlets ending in a polyp. The branches are of un- 

 equal length, and make it like a cylindrical bottle-brush, but at- 

 tenuated towards the tip ; they are aU of a bright yellow colour. 



Mr. Carter has kindly examined the cells under the microscope, 

 and observes that they are formed of oval imbricated scales, lacerated 

 on the edge, with radiating lines and scattered circular dots of a 

 calcareous secretion. 



Capt. Clark obtained at the same time, and sent to the British 

 Museum, a fine specimen of a PoreZZa* like Porella cervicornis, of a 

 bright crimson colour, with pale compressed forked tips ; it may be 

 called P. antarctica. 



Prize Question proposed hy tJie Danish Royal Society of Sciences 

 for the Tear 1872. 



It is now a hundred years since the celebrated observations of 

 0. F. MiiUer upon the agamic reproduction (gemmiparity) of the 

 Naides were published ; and although there is no reason to doubt 

 their perfect exactitude in all essential points, it would be very de- 

 sirable that they shoidd be taken up again from the present scientific 

 point of view, and with the means which science has now-a-days at 

 her disposal. Schultze, Leuckart, and Minor have furnished valu- 

 able contributions to the history of this mode of reproduction in the 

 Na'ides proper, as have Clans and Lankester for Chcetoyaster ; never- 

 theless more is wanted to place science in possession of sufficient 

 materials for the comprehension of all the points which it is neces- 

 sary to take into account. We do not know exactly what is the first 

 origin of the buds or new individuals ; and consequently the relations 

 between the seissiparous and gemmiparous modes of reproduction 

 need to be better elucidated. The complete evolution, from the 

 moment when a Naid escapes from the ovum until, among the ge- 

 nerations issuing from this Naid, sexual ones again occur, has not . 

 been investigated in all its phases ; and we may still inquire wt ether 

 the same individuals (zooids) are gemmiparous aud sexual, or whe- 



