Miscellaneous. 109 



or to the Chaetopods {Aphrodite) the biliary secretion tends to 

 become localized in small cteca inserted upon the sides of the intestinal 

 canal. These cases, however, which are almost alwaj-s coincident 

 with particular states of the digestive tube, are too rare and too 

 imperfect to evidence a true morphological relationship with the 

 arrangements proper to the higher Tnvertebrata. The latter are, 

 on the other hand, realized in all their essential characters in a 

 Helminth which I have lately been enabled to study, and the ex- 

 amination of which is most instructive in this point of view. 



This jS'ematoid worm, belonging to the group Agamonema, Dies., 

 lives encysted in the muscles of various fishes, and was sent to me 

 by M. H. Filhol, who obtained several examples of it during his stay 

 in Campbell Island. In this species the initial or oesophageal region 

 of the digestive tube is rather slender, and presents no other glands 

 than small follicles of irregular contour and containing a viscid, 

 hyaline liquid, in which are scattered fine greyish granules. The 

 middle intestine, which follows, is easily recognizable by the diff'er- 

 ence of its diameter from that of the preceding portion ; but this 

 difference is due less to a considerable increase in the calibre of the 

 intestinal canal, than to the development of an exterior brownish 

 mass which surrounds it and seems to become confounded wnth it. 



If this mass be torn to pieces and observed with a power of 120 

 and then of 360 diameters, it is found to be composed of glandular 

 tissue. It consists, in fact, of a multitude of caeca bounded by a fine 

 membrane which is slightly thickened at the periphery ; in their 

 interior appear a great number of rounded, brownish or yellowish 

 granules ; the absence of epithelial elements is easily explained by 

 the state of the animal. 



The structure of the organ, recalling in all its principal features 

 the constitution of the liver in the Crustacea and Mollusca, and its 

 relations like those which the organ affects in some of them (Squil- 

 Hdae, &c.), obliged us to consider it as a new form in the Vermes, 

 and show that, if most of these animals diverge in this respect from 

 the other Invertebrata, there are some nevertheless which approach 

 them, and like them possess a true hepatic gland. — Comptes Rendus, 

 April 15, 1878, p. 974. 



"WarteHa, a new Genus of Annelids, erroneously regarded as Embryos 

 of Terebellse. By M. Giard. 



In 1845, after describing and figuring the transformations of 

 Terebella nebuJosa, Mont., M. H. Milne-Edwards said that he was 

 inclined to believe that, from ignorance of these metamorphoses, the 

 larvae of Terebdlce might have been taken for distinct types, and 

 thus the number of genera might have been uselessly increased. 

 Since then the larvae of the Annelids have been much studied, and 

 the opposite mistake has rather been made, chiefly owing to these 

 studies having been directed too much to larvae captured in the 

 muslin net. and too little to the more difficult task of rearing the 



