Miscellaneous. oan 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
A new case of Care of the Brood in Holothurians. (Provisional 
Communication.) By Prof. Huserr Lupwie, of Bonn. 
Tur number of sea-cucumbers which care for their brood known 
up to the present time amounts to seven, all of which belong either 
to the Dendrochirote or to the Synaptide. One species among 
them—Phyllophorus urna, Grube—utilizes the body-cavity as a 
brood-chamber, while in the case of Cucumaria crocea (Lesson) and 
Psolus ephippifer, W. Thomson, the eggs undergo their development 
upon the dorsum of the mother; in Cucumaria levigata (Verrill) 
and Cucumaria glacialis, Ljangman, on the other hand, development 
takes place in special ventral brood-pouches (invaginations of the 
integument). With the exception of the Mediterranean Phyllo- 
phorus urna, all these Dendrochirote are arctic (Cucumarca glacialis) 
or antarctic forms (Cucumaria crocea, C. levigata, Psolus ephipptfer). 
In the case of the two Synaptide which care for the brood —Synapta 
vivipara (CXrstedt) and Chiridota rotifera (Pourtalés)—both of 
which belong to the West-Atlantic marine region, the body-cavity 
serves as brood-chamber; herein these species resemble Phyllo- 
phorus urna, With reference to Synapta vivipara, Clark * has 
recently furnished us with details of the development and care of 
the brood, after I had previously given a brief notice tT of the 
gastrula-stage found by me in the body-cavity of this species. As 
regards Chiridota rotifera, we possess only the tragmentary obser- 
vations I published by myself in 1881 ¢. 
That, however, there also exists an antarctic Chiridota in which 
care of the brood is well-marked, I am now in a position to show. 
The species in question is Chiridota contorta, which was described 
by myself in the year 1874, and of which I have now before me a 
more extensive series of specimens from the Hamburg Museum 
(obtained by the Hamburg-Magellan Collecting Expedition). In 
this species I discovered a form of care of the brood hitherto 
unknown either among Holothurians or in the case of any other 
Echinoderm. For in the female animals (the sexes in this species 
are separate, Just as I can also show to be the case in Chiridota 
* Clark, “The Viviparous Synapta of the West Indies” (Zool. Anz. 
1896, p. 398), and “Notes on the Life-History of Synapta viripara, 
CErstedt ” (‘ Journal of the Institute of Jamaica,’ vol. ii. part 3, Kings- 
ton (Jamaica), 1896, pp. 278-282). 
+ Ludwig, “ Die von Chierchia auf der Fahrt der kgl. ital. Corvette 
‘Vettor Pisani’ gesammelten Holothurien,” Zoologische Jahrbiicher, ii, 
1886, pp. 28-29. Clark does not refer to this publication, but, on the 
contrary, erroneously asserts that I described a specimen of Synapta vivi- 
para as far back as 1881. My paper of the year 1881 (‘ Archives de 
Biologie,’ ii. p. 41) refers not to Synapta vivipara, but to Chiridota 
rotifera. 
1 See previous note. 
