Miscellaneous. 259 
sions, measuring from 0-033 to 0-040 millim. ‘Their number is ten 
in 7’. scutigera, twelve in 7. scalaris. Staphylocystis biliarius usually 
has fourteen hooks, which also attain a length of 0-040 millim. 
The difference in number is so small that it may be a question 
whether Dujardin did not observe individuals of a single species 
which had lost more or less of their hooks. M. Villot unhesita- 
tingly refers his Staphylocystis micracanthus to Tenia pistillum. He 
sums up his results as follows :— 
It is now easy, taking into consideration the habits of their suc- 
cessive hosts, to summarize the history of these parasites. The pro- 
glottids, adult individuals, loaded with ova and embryos, detach 
themselves from the strobile and escape from the intestine of the 
shrew along with the excrements; then the embryos pierce the 
envelopes, and, having got free, wait patiently in the moist ground 
on which they have been deposited for the moment when they can 
introduce themselves into the body of the Glomeris. Their migra- . 
tion must, in the first place, be purely passive ; for we cannot other- 
wise understand the important fact that the Staphylocysts are 
always attached to the Malpighian tubes. They probably pass into 
the stomachs of their hosts along with the half-decomposed vegeta- 
ble débris upon which the latter feed. At the entrance of the 
intestines the embryos may get into the biliary vessels. travel 
through these for some time, and then traverse their walls, to take 
up their abode in the adipose tissue which surrounds those organs. 
Arrived at their dwelling-place they lose their hooks, which have 
now become useless, pass into the vesicular state, proliferate, and 
hecome scoleces. A shrew meeting with an infested Glomeris will 
devour it as readily as another, introducing into its own stomach at 
once a hundred scoleces, which on arriving in the intestine of the 
insectivore will attach themselves, and in their turn bud and form 
strobiles. The proglottids of the latter will acquire genital organs. 
and give birth to a new generation.— Comptes Rendus, November 19, 
1877, p. 971. 
On some Monstrosities of Asteracanthion rubens. By M. A. Grarp. 
On the beach at Wimereux, where the common starfish (Astera- 
canthion rubens) is excessively abundant, especially during the 
winter and spring months, we find pretty frequently among these 
animals various interesting monstrosities. Thus we may every 
year obtain many individuals possessing six rays, instead of five, 
the normal number. 
As the number of rays varies in the group Asteriade in allied 
species, and sometimes even in a particular species, it was natural 
to see in these aberrations either a simple case of polymelism, or a 
numerical variation in the constitution of the cenobiwm, according 
as one gave to each ray of a starfish the value of a member or that 
of an individual. 
There is no doubt that a good many of the six-rayed Asteracan- 
thions are really monstrosities of this kind. In fact we find, from 
time to time, specimens in which one ray is bifurcated about the 
