NATURE 



409 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, iJ 



THE ZOOLOGICAL RESULTS OF THE 

 ''CHALLENGER" EXPEDITION. 



Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. 

 " Challenger" during the Years 1873-76, under the 

 command of Captain George S. Nares, R.N., F.R.S., 

 and the late Captain Frank T. Thomson, R.N Pre- 

 pared under the superintendence of the late Sir C, 

 Wyville Thomson, Knt., F.R.S., &c., Director of the 

 Civilian Staff on board, and now of John Murray, 

 LL.D., Ph.D., &c., one of the Naturalists of the 

 Expedition. Zoology— Vol. XXVIII. PubHshed by 

 Order of Her Majesty's Government. (London : Printed 

 for Her Majesty's Stationery Office, and sold by Eyre 

 and Spottiswoode, 1888.) 

 ''T^HIS volume contains but one Report, that on the 

 J- Siphonophorae collected during the voyage of the 

 Challenger, by Ernst Haeckel, M.D., Ph.D., &c. The 

 manuscript was received in instalments between February 

 Sand July 5, 1888. 



In the editorial note we read : — " Prof. Haeckel, through 

 his long-continued and elaborate investigations of living 

 Siphonophorae and Medusae in the Mediterranean, Indian 

 and Atlantic Oceans, was in a very special manner fitted 

 to undertake such a task as this Report ; and it must be 

 regarded as fortunate that he should have been willing to 

 undertake the work on condition that some of his own 

 unpublished observations should be incorporated. This 

 important and masterly Report has thus become a mono- 

 graph of the whole class more complete than hitherto 

 published ; the classification has been reformed and 

 placed on a new basis. The introduction, giving a gen- 

 eral account of the morphology of the order, was trans- 

 lated from the German manuscript by Mr. J. Arthur 

 Thomson, M.A. All the remaining part of the Report was 

 written by Prof. Haeckel in the English language." 



It may be fearlessly asserted that no living biologist 

 is more capable of writing a Report on the Challenger 

 Siphonophorae than Prof. Haeckel, and but little objec- 

 tion could be taken to the request that his previous original 

 work should be incorporated with that more particularly 

 devoted to the results of the Challenger's expedition ; 

 nay, personally, we are inclined to think that a Report 

 should benefit immensely by the incorporation of such 

 work, the more especially in the case of a class like that 

 of the Siphonophoras, where the drawings from the life 

 are of paramount importance. 



It is well known to all interested in the beautiful and 

 graceful forms which constitute the class of the Siphono- 

 phorae, that Prof. Haeckel's " System der Siphonophoren, 

 auf phylogenetischer Grundlage entworfen" appeared in 

 \.\\& fenaische Zeitschrift for May 1888 ; and in the present 

 Report (p. 356) he himself tells us that a separate edition 

 of this important paper was published in December 1887. 

 The general introduction to the Report, which the editor 

 informs us was translated from the German manuscript 

 furnished between February and July 1888, is declared 

 by Prof. Haeckel to be translated from the general part 

 of the above-mentioned separate edition ; and, as a matter 

 Vol. XXXIX.— No. 1009. 



of fact, a reference to \}a& fenaische Zeitschrift shows this 

 to be the case, with an addition of three pages on " the fun- 

 damental form (promorph)." This is but a small matter, 

 but the statement in the preface is certainly one apt to 

 mislead the reader, who ought to have been informed of 

 the previous publication of the general introduction, 

 without being left to stumble upon the statement of the 

 fact on almost the last page of the volume. 



Since the publication of the memoir on the Siphono- 

 phorae in the fenaische Zeitschrift, the classification of the 

 group has been but little " reformed," and has certainly 

 not been placed " on a new basis." In the " System " 

 there are seventy-five genera enumerated, which are in- 

 cluded in twenty-two families, divided into five orders. 

 In the Report the orders remain the same, two of the sub- 

 families are elevated to the rank of families, and some 

 half-dozen of the genera are subdivided. Their numerical 

 arrangement is unaltered, but letters are added to the 

 running numbers of the " System " ; thus Genus 7 5 in both 

 the "System" and the Report is PhysaUa, Lamk., while 

 in the Report the genus Caravella, Hkl,, is added as 75^. 

 There being no index of genera and species, this partly 

 numerical and partly alphabetical systematic arrangement 

 of the genera makes the volume difficult of reference. 



That this Report, able as it is, cannot be regarded 

 as a " monograph " of the order will be generally 

 acknowledged when the following facts are considered. 

 The first order, Disconectee, contains three families ; the 

 first of these, with a circular and regular octoradial 

 umbrella, and with mouthless blastostyles, is called Dis- 

 calidae; it contains two genera, Discalia and DisconaHa. 

 Of the former two species are named, both inhabitants of 

 the deep sea, and both found by Haeckel in the Challenger 

 collection ; the first species is described and beautifully 

 figured as D. medusina, the second species, D. primordi- 

 alis, n. sp., was captured in the tropical Pacific, at Station 

 274, and at a depth of 2750 fathoms ; but we read, p. 46, 

 " as its state of preservation was not sufficient, I give only 

 the description of the first well-preserved species." Of 

 the genus DisconaHa, " two species (both deep-sea in- 

 habitants) were found by me in the Challenger collection, 

 one from the Southern Pacific (Station 181), the other 

 from the Indian Ocean, south of Australia (Station 157). 

 ThQ\2iX.itr {DisconaHa pectyllis) had much longer and less 

 ramified tentacles, and a larger pneumatocyst, than the for- 

 mer (Z?/V. gastroblasta) ; but its state of preservation was not 

 sufficient for a full description " (p. 48) ; nevertheless,we are 

 promised that DisconaHa pectyllis will be described after- 

 wards in " my ' Morphologie der Siphonophoren ' " (p. 357). 

 These two instances occur within the margins of the first 

 two dozen pages of the descriptive portion of the Report ; 

 and when we call to mind the really wonderful way in 

 which, from a few fragments. Prof. Haeckel has, in this 

 very volume, diagnosed and even figured some of the 

 Challenger species, we regret all the more that he has not 

 here given us, at the very least, those descriptions which 

 he has reserved for elsewhere. Among the list of 

 Challenger species apparently good enough for future 

 description, but though named yet not described in this 

 Report, we note the following : Eudoxella didyma, Hkl. 

 (Station 343, p. 108),— this genus is quoted from the 

 "System" as Eudoxella, Hkl. ; but in the "System," we 

 find it printed as Eudoxon, Hkl., which name would 



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