432 Miscellaneous. 



that this is the case also in Salmac'ma Dysteri and the Spirorbes. 

 In these different animals the excreted corpuscles have the value of 

 rudimentary cells having an atavic signification, and cannot properly 

 be called polar corpuscles. This name, on the contrary, applies to 

 the non-cellular materials, which, being rejected by the vitellus, 

 serve for the formation of the accessory organs of the ovum ; for 

 example, the shell or the vitelline membrane. Such are the hyaline 

 vesicles of the ovum of RMzostoma Cuvieri. — Comptes Sendiis, 

 March 19, 1877, p. 564. 



Vertigo Moulinsiana, Dupuy. 



This interesting and local little land-shell has been lately disco- 

 vered by Mr. Henry Groves, while botanizing, in a small marsh 

 between Winchester and Southampton, See ' British MoUusca,' i. 

 p. 256, and v. (Suppl.) p. 160. Mr. Groves's specimens are rather 

 more swollen or barrel-shaped than mine from the west of Ireland ; 

 and they agree exactly with some Danish specimens, for which I 

 am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Morch, as well as with the 

 descriptions and figures of Dupuy and Moquin-Tandon. Klister 

 and Kreglinger called it V. Charpentieri, after a MS. name given 

 by Shuttleworth. Heyneman described it as V. ventrosa, and 

 Westerlund as Pupa Lilljeborgi. Dupuy's name {Motdindana) 

 dates from 1849, and has priority. — J. Gwyn Jeffreys. 



Sponges Dt'edged %ip on hoard H.M.S. ' Porcupine ' in 1869-70, 

 Returned. By H. J. Carter, F.R.S. &c. 



By reference to my communication on Sponges dredged up on 

 board H.M.S. ' Porcupine ' in 1869-70 (' Annals,' 1876, vol. xviii. 

 p. 226), it will be observed that they were then in my possession ; 

 and being the property of the Nation, I have now to add what I 

 have done with them, which wiU. be told by the following letter : — 



(Copy). 

 " ' The Cottage,' Budleigh-Saltertou, DcYon. 

 24th March, 1877. 



" My Dear Thomson, — I have this day forwarded to the address 

 you gave me in your letter of the 14th inst., viz. ' 1 Park Place, 

 Edinburgh' (carriage unpaid, as they came to me), three boxes con- 

 taining all the Sponge-specimens (both wet and dry), dredged up 

 on board H.M.S. ' Porcupine' in 1869-70, which you sent in 1872, 

 excepting about as much as would fill a hen's egg, which has been 

 chiefly used in their examination. 



" I took the boxes (also addressed ' To Scotland via Midland 

 Eailway ') to the office of the Bristol and Exeter line in Queen Street, 

 Exeter, myself, and saw the clerk write ' Van Bail ' on each of 

 them, stating that they would reach their destination on Monday 

 next, which I trust may be the case — and safely, too, as, to insure 

 this, all reasonable care has been taken in packing and addressing 

 them both outside and in. 



