406 Miscellaneous. 



excursions to the Reculet during the present year furnished no 

 results ; no traces of Branchipvs could be found in that locality. 



Wishing to compare BrancMpus "with an allied genus, M. Vogt 

 applied to Prof. C. Martins of Montpellier, to ask him for some speci- 

 mens of Artemia salina, a species of Branchiopod which swarms in 

 the salt marshes of the neighbourhood of Cette. M. Martins sent 

 several thousands of these animals, with a supply of the mother 

 liquors in which they live. They arrived at Geneva in good con- 

 dition, and are living in an aquarium, in which they produce enor- 

 mous quantities of eggs and larvae. 



M. Vogt exhibited a bottle filled with living Artemice and their 

 larvas and explained the structure of the adult BrancMpus, describing, 

 among other things, a pair of footjaws which had escaped the obser- 

 vation of MM. Joly, Leydig, &e. He then dwelt upon the form of 

 the larvae, which in both Artemia and Brayichipus exhibit the 

 primitive fundamental type of the Crustacea, to which the name of 

 Nauplius has been given. But although fundamentally the same, 

 the Nauplii of the two genera present considerable differences, those 

 of BrancMpus being shorter and more compressed, and those of 

 Artemia more slender and elongated. The lateral compound eyes 

 appear much later in Artemia than in BrancMpus. 



The first pair of appendages in the Navplius consists of two 

 antennas which afterwards become the antennae of the perfect 

 animal. The second pair forms the chief or sole organ of locomotion 

 of the larva ; and after numerous moults these appendages finally 

 become the horn-shaped pieces which serve as prehensile organs in 

 the male BrancMvus and are rudimentary in the female. The third 

 pair serve the larva to carry its food to its mouth ; in the adult it 

 forms the mandibles, which constitute the third pair of appendages. 

 The eleven pairs of natatory feet and the pair of footjaws of the 

 adult originate subsequently by budding. 



M. Vogt confirms the observation of M. Joly that among the 

 Artemice collected at Cette during the months of July and August 

 there are no males, and that the females propagate by parthenogeusis. 

 This fact is the more remarkable as we find males in great abundance 

 in other salt marshes inhabited by the same or analogous species. — 

 Bihl. Univ. Sept. 15, 1872, Arch, des Sci. p. 30. 



On Osteocella septentrionalis f7'om British Columbia. 

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



The substance described by me in the ' Annals, 1872, ix. p. 406, 

 under this name was, at the meeting of the British Association at 

 Brighton, and since in ' Nature,' regarded as the notochord of a fish ! 

 Professor Dawson of M'Gill College, Montreal, Canada, states that it 

 was submitted^ to Professor Verrill of Yale CoUege, who "had no doubt 

 as to its nature " (that is, of its being the axis of a Virgularia or 

 some similar creature), " but believed it probably belonged to an uu- 

 described species." Dr. Dawson states that Mr. Selwyn's specimen 

 has " attached to the granulated lower extremity some trace of animal 

 matter, in which I think I can detect, under the microscope, a few 

 club-shaped spicules." 



