144 MisceUaneous. 



their mode of life, except that at the end of May I found one of the 

 animals, still living, quite loose in its chitinous envelope. This 

 (together with the whole dentary armature of the oesophagus) was 

 completely thrown off ; and the animal therefore regularly moulted. 

 — Zeitschr. fiir wiss. Zool. Bd. xxi. p. 385. 



On Priapulus caudatus, Linn. By Dr. E. von Willimoes-Stjhm. 



Priaptdus was obtained by me more rarely than Halicryptus ; in 

 fact I only captured six specimens in all, which buried themselves very 

 briskly as soon as I put them into the pan. They worked onward 

 by quickly extending the proboscis and retracting it equally rapidly, 

 usually keeping the caudal appendage close to the body. But their 

 movements soon became sloAver, and in a few days their muscular 

 power seemed lost ; for they lay still for a long time with the caudal 

 appendage extended, and then died. Priapulus also wUl probably 

 pass through its first stages of development at the end of April or 

 the beginning of May ; for as early as the middle of June I captured 

 several very small and still quite transparent animals in the towing- 

 net. The smallest of them was 6 millims. in length, and moved 

 just like the adult, which it also perfectly resembled, even to the 

 tail, in its external form. The denticulation of the oesophagus and 

 the divisions of the nutritive canal were distinctly recognizable. 

 Near the anus the sexual glands opened; and on them the same 

 appendicular gland was perceptible that I observed in Halicryptus. 



In Priapulus the caudal appendage, as is well known, is a con- 

 tinuation of the body-cavity, in which, as in the latter, the cells of 

 the body-fluids circulate fi-eely. At the external end there is a 

 pore, through which perhaps water is received into the body. The 

 appendage, which, like the covering of the body, possesses a longi- 

 tudinal and transverse musculature, was, in one young animal, con- 

 stricted only in three places. Those " points " of the subcutide 

 which Ehlers * has described project into the chitinous membrane 

 in much greater numbers than in the true body of the animal. 

 These points also exist in abundance on the papillae which, in the 

 adult Priapulus, cover the whole appendage like berries. In our 

 young animal these papillae only exist at the upper part, and in 

 small number ; below they are entirely wanting. The young ani- 

 mal is thus distinguished from the adult. 



According to an oral communication from Dr. Liitken, of Copen- 

 hagen, I may mention the Oeresund as a habitat ot Priapulus, as it 

 is found, although not abundantly, near Hellebaek. — ZeitscJir. fiir 

 wiss. Zool. Bd. xxi. p. 386. 



* Ueber die Gattung Priapulus, p. 21. 



