Prof. P. M. Duncan on the Salenidee. 59 



apices projecting beyond the prosternal process ; band of pro- 

 sternum in front of the cox^ quite distinct, and less reduced 

 than in any other of the New-Zealand species, although much 

 smaller than it is in the European Chrysomela cervina^ Linn. 

 {Dascillus cervinus, Munich Cat.) ; prosternal process not 

 forming an abrupt angle with the slender middle prosternal 

 piece, its termination slender but distinctly prolonged behind 

 the cox£e. Mesosternum without any triangular space in front 

 in the middle to receive the prosternal process ; the articulation 

 of metasternum with mesosternum between middle coxse in- 

 complete. 



This species is abruptly differentiated from the other New- 

 Zealand species by the want of the cavity on the mesoster- 

 num, and by the less-reduced front band of the presternum. 

 The species makes a greater approximation to the Palsearctic 

 Dascillus than do any of the other New-Zealand species, and 

 may be treated at present as occupying a position interme- 

 diate between it and Mesocyphon. 



VII. — On the Salenidae, Wright. — Part III. On a third Form 

 of Recent Salenias, and on the Salenige from the Tertiary 

 Deposits, By Prof. P. Maetin Duncan, M.B. Lond., 

 F.RS., &c. 



Sir Wyville Thomson has published two exquisite woodcuts 

 of a form which he considers to be Salenia varispina, Agass., 

 in his last work, which is more or less a summary of the 

 scientific work done by the staff of H.M.S. ' Challenger ' in 

 and about the Atlantic *. The engravings, which must have 

 been the work of a very skilled artist, may be assumed to be 

 exact, or that, from the known difficulty of distinguishing the 

 sutures of the part of the apical system remote from the 

 madreporic plate, an error has crept in. The apical system 

 (cut 32 t) is unlike that of Salenia varispina as drawn by 

 Agassiz, and does not resemble that of any species of Salenia. 

 "When placed in the proper position, the engraving indicates 

 that the subanal plate is placed as in a typical Salenia^ and 

 that the anal orifice, as usual, infringes on the generative plate 

 posterior to the madreporic, and on that situated between the 

 posterior ambulacra — that is to say, according to the accepted 

 views of Loven, the right posterior and the posterior genera- 



* ' The Voyage of the ChaUenger : ' '' The Atlantic." 

 t Page 144. The reader of the book is directed to cut 31 for the 

 delineation of the apical system, so interesting to biologists; this is a mis- 

 print for 32. 



