Misceflaneous. 487 



movinfr, while each worker comes between the soldiers and deposits 

 its load, returning nnlil the lireai-h is clo.«ed. 



Besides tlie ahove-dLScribed forms, there are always a f>;reat. 

 number of immature termites all over the nest, from the tinj- larvifi 

 just hatched from the ejrf^s to the pupa; with their wing-cases 

 reaching down to the middle of the back. — Ajricultaral Gazttle of 

 Sew South Walis, May 1897, pp. 297-300. 



Care of the Brood in i'solus aiitarcticus. 

 By Prof. HuBEKT Lcuwio, of Bonn. 



I am already once more able to report a hitherto unknown case 

 of care of the brood in Ilulothuriaiis, and again it is u que-stion of 

 an antarctic species and of a form of care of the brood which is new 

 for Holothurians. Although since its first description by Philippi 

 (1857) Psoitis antarctictis lias been on several occasions the subject 

 of observation and study, for it has been investigated by Studer 

 (1876), Thcel (1886), Lampert (1889), and myself (1886), nothing 

 whatever had been learnt of the existence of care of the brood in 

 this species. It is true that we have been told by Wyville Thomson 

 (1876) that another antarctic Paolus, Thomson's P. ephippifer, brings 

 up its young beneath the dorsal plates modified for this purpose ; 

 but that the longest-known antarctic species of Psohts — P. ant- 

 arcticus (Phil.) — the range of which extends from Payta (Peru) 

 southwards as far as Cape Horn, also belongs to the forms which 

 care for their brood is an unexpected discovery. The score of largo 

 and small specimens that Dr. Michaelsen has brought home from 

 the Hamburg-Magellan Collecting Expedition * include ten small 

 and medium-sized examples which were collected on July 9, 1893, 

 in Smyth Channel (north-east of the Straits of Magellan) ; among 

 these I met with two which to my surprise carried their young on 

 the ventral side, which is flattened to form the creeping sole. 



In the specimen which is the better preserved of the two and 

 measures 12"5millim. in length by 8'5millim. in breadth Ifiud almost 

 one half of the creeping sole occupied by young animals (twenty-tw^o 

 in number), which are all in the same stage of development and are 

 attached by their pedicels to the area of the sole which is bare or 

 devoid of pedicels. The pedicels of the adult animal are not 

 touched by the young; moreover, no young are to be found on the 

 outside of the maternal pedicel-zone. "While cure of the brood is in 

 progress the mother can move about as freely as ever or can attach 

 itself and adhere tirmlj' to its support. Contrary, therefore, to what 



* It was iu the material obtained by this expedition that I also dis- 

 covered care of the brood iu the case of Chiridota co)itorta, as recently 

 reported by me (' Zool. Anzeiger,' Bd. xx. 1897, 00.5^4, pp. 217-219 

 [Ann. & Mag. Xat. Hist. ser. 6, vol. xx. 1897, pp. 327-328];. 



