OCCASIONAL NOES. 345 
nervous system; and how the great vascular trunks are formed by the 
differentiation of portions of the endoderm, into which offsets extend from 
the central cavity. Prof. Allman further referred to the facts connected 
with the metamorphoses which the larve of the Ctenophora undergo between 
the moment of leaving the egg and the attainment of the mature form— 
facts for which we are mainly indebted to the researches of Alexander Agassiz 
and of Chun. He showed how the lobed section of the Ctenophora, as 
proved by the investigations of A. Agassiz on Bolina, and by those of Chun 
on Eucharis, are at first quite destitute of the “lobes” which constitute so 
characteristic a feature in the adult; and how the young Ctenophore has at 
this time all the characters of the more simply constructed Cydipide, 
Eucharis being also compressed like a Mertensia in the direction of the 
stomach-axis, while in the adult the compression of the body is at right 
angles to this; how the lobes afterwards grow out laterally from the oval 
side of the body; how the meridional vessels at first ending in blind 
extremities extend themselves into the rudimental lobes, and there form 
the anastomoses and rich convolutions which become so striking in the 
adult, the stomach-vessels finally entering into the anastomoses. He also 
referred to Chun’s remarkable discovery of the sexually mature condition of 
the very early larva of Hucharis, from which was reared a young brood 
which returned to the larve form from which it originated. Chun’s 
observations on the metamorphoses of the Venus’s-girdle (Cestum veneris) 
were also dwelt on. It was shown how the young Cestuwm had a nearly 
globular form and possessed all the essential features of the Cydipide, so 
that notwithstanding the extremely aberrant characters of the adult the 
young may be taken as affording a type of the gastro-vascular system with 
the distribution of the vessels in the Ctenopora generally. The gradual 
extension of the Cydippe-like larvee in the direction of the funnel-plane 
changes it into the long flattened, band-like form of the adult, and brings 
about (with modifications in the number and direction of the swimming- 
plates, and the substitution of new tentacles to replace those of the larva 
which had disappeared) the singularly aberrant course of the vessels 
characteristic of the mature Venus’s-girdle. 
Tue tare Proressor Rotueston, M.D., F.R.S.—The report of the 
death at Oxford of Professor Rolleston, in June last, came too late for 
notice in the July number of this journal; and although by the time these 
lines are in the hands of our readers the intelligence will have long before 
reached them, we nevertheless do not hesitate to refer to it, not by way of 
news, but in order to pay a humble tribute to the memory of a distinguished 
zoologist. As Linacre Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Oxford, 
Professor Rolleston was widely known and deservedly respected, while to 
