388 Miscellaneous. 



Hymenaster pellucichis of 'Wyville Thomson, giving revised generic 

 and specific characters for the last two forms. — Nyt Magazin for 

 Naturvidenskaberne, Bind xxvii. pp. 267-299, with 4 plates ; and 

 Bind xxviii. 10 pp., and 2 plates, 1882-83. 



The Breeding of the Sea-Lamprey. By M, L. Ferr?. 



The author records a circumstance which seems to show that the 

 ova of the sea-lamprey are fecundated while still contained within 

 the body of the female. He says that in the early part of June 1874 

 a keeper caught in the Allier a female lamprey adhering by its mouth 

 to a boat near Moulins, opened it, and placed the ova" in a large 

 pan. As it rained, the pan was soon tilled with water ; and in about 

 twenty days the ova were all hatched. It has been supposed that 

 the ova of the lamprey were fecundated by the male after expulsion 

 from the body of the female ; the author thinks that the relations of 

 the sexes are more intimate, and that the females are fecundated 

 while they and the males are adhering side by side to the same rock 

 or the same tree, a situation in which they are sometimes found in 

 groups, where they remain attached and interlaced in such a man- 

 ner that it is easy to capture them.— Comptes Bend us, March 12, 

 1883, p. 721. 





Note oil a Peripatus from the Island of Dominica, West Indies. 



As even isolated facts with regard to this interesting " Arthro- 

 pod " are of interest, I may state that Mr, G. F« Angas, C.M.Z.S., 

 who has lately returned from an expedition to the island of Domi- 

 nica, "West Indies, has presented to the Trustees of the British 

 Museum the single specimen of Peripatus found by him. This ex- i 



ample has thirty pairs of feet, not counting the oral papillae as 

 some confusion has arisen in the mode of counting, I may say that, 

 like Professor Moseley, I find thirty-one pairs of feet in Grube's 

 figure of P. Edirardsi. In the present condition of our knowledge 

 it is, as a reference to Mr. Moselev's paper in this journal (ser. 5, 

 in. pp. 203-267) will show, impossible to give definitely a specific 

 name to a single specimen ; but I may point out that in the Domi- 

 nican specimen the form of the "pits on the under surface of the 

 foot-cones" may for some be said to be circular, for others linear, 

 and that there is a similar variation in the extent to which these 

 pores may be said to be distinct ; the differences which obtain be- 

 tween examples is due, possibly, to differences in the mode or length 

 of time of preservation. No doubt the monograph commenced by 

 the late Prof. Balfour, and now, as I understand, in course of prepa- 

 ration by Mr. Adam Sedgwick, will set at rest the questions which 

 affect the specific differences of this archaic genus. 



F. Jeffrey Bell. 



