5° 



NA TV RE 



{_Nov. 1 8, 1886 



important means of obtaining specimens seems to have 

 been by the examination of the stomachs of birds, fish, 

 and Cetacea. These creatures seem to be much more 

 satisfactory collectors than the tow-net, in which, though 

 it was so constantly in use, few Cephalopods were taken. 

 Possibly the immense activity of the cuttlefish will account 

 for this. An atlas of thirty-three plates accompanies this 

 Report. 



(2) On the Stomatopoda, by W. K. Brooks, Johns 

 Hopkins University. These Crustacea are in their adult 

 forms inhabitants of shallow water. The collection 

 brought hoine was but small, and contained no startling 

 novelties, so that at first the author was somewhat 

 disappointed ; but this feeling turned to delight when he 

 discovered that the material furnished some excellent 

 opportunities for tracing out, and that with great com- 

 pleteness, the phylogeny and ontogeny of this little order. 

 This order includes about 60 adult species and a vast 

 number of tropical larvae. The Challenger collection of 

 adult forms consisted of only 15 species, 8 of these new, 

 while 2 others had been, to this, very inadequately 

 described ; but the collection of pelagic larval Stomato- 

 pods was peculiarly rich, and in Mr. Brooks's hands it 

 has yielded the inaterial for tracing the history of several 

 of the larval types, and also, more remarkable still, for 

 establishing in every genus except one the connection 

 between the adults and their larval types. The larval 

 history of these Stomatopods has been one of the most 

 puzzling problems in morphology, and the very admir- 

 able researches of Claus had been the only guide. Though 

 often in error, Mr. Brooks confesses that without Claus's 

 memoir to guide him his own labours must have failed. 

 Unlike most Malacostraca, the Stomatopods, instead of 

 carrying their developing eggs about with them, deposit 

 them in their deep and out-ofthe-way burrows under the 

 water. They are thus most difficult to procure, and so 

 difficult to rear that probably not a single instance of a 

 young Stomatopod being reared from the egg is known. 

 The growth of the larvse is slow, and the larval life long, 

 and, as they are as independent and as much exposed to 

 changes in their environment and to the struggle for 

 existence as the adults, it has come to pass that they as 

 larvae have undergone countless modifications which have 

 no reference to the life of the adult, and are therefore un- 

 represented in the adult organism, in which the larvre 

 differ inter se more than the adults do, thus reversing the 

 general rule. The history of each larval type has thus to 

 be traced by the selection and comparison of those larvae 

 which belong to the series, and in doing this the author 

 was partly guided by general resemblances and partly by 

 a series of comparative measurements. The differences 

 between the genera are slight, and all can be grouped into 

 a single family, Squillida:. In the description of Lysio- 

 sqiiilla cxxavatrix we have a very interesting account 

 of its habits. The Report concludes with an elaborate 

 account of the various larval forms and their adult con- 

 nections. Sixteen plates accompany the Report. 



(3) On the Reef Corals, by John J. Ouelch, B.Sc. Lond. 

 The author apologises for this Report of just 200 pages 

 being so short, as he was limited both as to time and 

 space. A careful perusal of the memoir inclines us to 

 the opinion that no such apology is needed. Without 

 being a monograph, the Report forms a most important 



contribution to our knowledge, and this not only of the 

 distribution of the reef corals, but also, in many instances, 

 of their structure. The term reef coral is undoubtedly 

 vague, but the forms described in this report belong 

 almost entirely to the Reef Madrepores, descriptions of 

 some few species of Millepores being added. The col- 

 lection made contained representatives of 293 species 

 referable to 69 genera, and many of the species were 

 represented by series of specimens often presenting a 

 considerable degree of variation. As a pi"oof of how 

 little known are the corals of the Pacific and Indo-Pacific 

 Islands, it may be mentioned that 71 of the new species 

 were found in these regions, while but 2 were from the 

 Atlantic. No attempt has been made to describe the soft 

 parts of the specimens. Special attention is directed to 

 the fact that the descriptions of species apply to speci- 

 mens in which the calycles are perfect ; in most museum 

 specimens these are generally to be found greatly injured, 

 and then it is often impossible to distinguish between 

 closely-related forms. In the treatment of the distribution 

 of these corals, lists are given of the species obtained at 

 each locality, together with lists of the new species, and 

 of old species recorded from the stations for the first 

 time. While the classification adopted is on the main 

 based on that of Milne-Edwards and Haime, a rather 

 startling novelty in arrangement is the merging of the 

 Madreporia Rugosa with the section of Aladreporia 

 Aporosa. The detailed reasons for this are given on 

 pp. 40-43 ; and as a result the author considers that there 

 is not a single characteristic of the old group Rugosa 

 which will essentially separate forms usually included 

 under it from the more typical Astraeids. Thus in many 

 Astrsids the septa present are not multiples of six, while 

 in some typical C5'athophyllida5 the septa are simply 

 radially arranged, without any indication whatever of a 

 tetrameral type. Again, the presence of a fossula is 

 scarcely even of generic value ; and as to the presence in 

 the adult rugose coral of but two sizes of septa, this phe- 

 nomenon is not always present in the species, and is to 

 be met with in some typical Astrffiids ; while as to the 

 tabulae, which are no doubt very characteristic of the 

 Rugosa as a group, still even these are present in some 

 Astraeids, and absent in some Rugosa. In a striking new 

 Madrepore, Moseleya latistellata, the characters are to a 

 marked degree intermediate. 



There is yet a great deal of work to be done ere the 

 distributional areas of the reef corals is known. Probably 

 the coral fauna of no district, unless that of the Red Sea, 

 has been fairly worked out. It was in the nature of 

 things that the cruise of the Challenger could not, from the 

 shortness of its sojourn at any one coral district, do much 

 in this direction. Still soine few facts of great interest 

 have been brought to light, one of the most remarkable 

 being the occurrence of an undoubted reef building 

 species, Manlcina areolata, in Simon's Bay, between 

 lat. 34° and 35° S., at a depth of from 10 to 20 fathoms, 

 and at a temperature of 65° F., and this is all the more 

 peculiar, as this coral is a well-known West Indian reef- 

 building form. Another coral, Cladocera arbuscula, was 

 also found at Simon's Bay, though a West Indian species. 



Notes and descriptions of eight species of Millepora 

 are given in an appendix. One new species is called 

 after Mr. Murray, being the one on which he saw the 



