486 Miscellaneous. 
other classes of animals are liable to an influence similar in kind, 
particularly among insects and Crustacea, yet this disorganization is 
rarely observed except among the Phasianida, and particularly when 
these birds are produced in a domestic state, 7. e. on the present 
system of breeding pheasants in preserves. Very few battues take 
place in which some of these birds, generally designated mules, are 
not killed and mixed indiscriminately with the heaps of the slain. 
As to the cause of this disorganization, if it occurred only in the 
old female, or if it were a common occurrence among birds either of 
different genera or of the same genus, it could be easily accounted for ; 
but when it is generally found existing among a class of birds which 
are bred in vast numbers in a particularly artificial manner, it leads 
one to suppose that the cause must be connected with this condition. 
Whether the eggs laid by a number of females—to whom perhaps, 
from circumstances, too few males have been admitted—have been 
properly fecundated, and therefore the chick improperly formed, re- 
mains a subject for future consideration. 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
On Mesozoic Forms of Life in Australia. 
To Wm. Francis, Ph.D., F.L.S. 
My pEAR S1r,—I learn from a correspondent at Melbourne, Mr. J. 
S. Poore, that during his visit to King George’s Sound, Western 
Australia, he there dredged up, from 8 fathoms, a living Encrinite. 
The stem, which was attached to a stone, was about 6 inches long; 
the arms about 13 inch, of a beautiful rose-colour, or pink, fading 
to white. 
This, in connexion with Stutchbury’s discovery of a living Trigonia 
at Port Jackson, and other evidences of mesozoic life at the Anti- 
podes, noticed in the published descriptions of the fossil marsupials 
of British oolites, is an interesting fact. Faithfully yours, 
British Museum, May 19, 1862. Ricuarp Owen. 
On the Development of Actinotrocha branchiata. 
By Dr. A. ScHNEIDER. 
Krohn first discovered that Actinotrocha is the larva of a Sipun- 
culide (Miiller’s ‘Archiv,’ 1858, p. 293). In his investigations, 
however, the passage into the worm took place so rapidly that he 
could obtain only a very imperfect notion of the nature of the meta- 
morphosis. At the time when I was engaged in Heligoland with 
investigations upon the same subject, Claparéde published (in Reich- 
ert and Dubois’s Archiv, 1861, p. 538, taf. 2. figs. 1-6) the exact 
description of a Sipunculide, which, as Claparéde himself asserts, 
was not fully developed. I believe I may assume with tolerable 
certainty that this is derived from an Actinotrocha. Krohn’s dis- 
covery was made upon a new species. I succeeded with Actinotrocha 
branchiata, not only.in ascertaining the Sipunculide to which it 
belongs, but also in tracing the evolution step by step. 
In the cavity of the body of Actinotrocha there is a long convo- 
