486 REPORT—1885. 
But the remarkable development of other characters in Smuittia, Schizo- 
porella, and Mastigophora Hyndmanni increases the interest in the study 
of the zocecium having a sinuated lip. The group, however, has had 
a wonderful history, for it reaches back to the Cretaceous epoch, and 
many and diverse are the fossil forms of the older authors which are 
now regarded as synonyms of well-defined recent species. Taking only 
one, Schizoporella wnicornis, Johnson, no fewer that nine species—or even 
more if we include the varieties, some of which are fossil forms—are placed 
as synonyms. In his papers on the Australian Bryozoa, Mr. Waters 
describes a number of species belonging to the genus Schizoporella, and 
Mr. Busk adds additional particulars in his Challenger Report. — 
Species belonging to the MicrororeLLipm of Hincks demand a closer 
and more critical study than they have yet received. Not so much on 
account of the orifice—which is more or less semicircular with margin 
entire, but on account of the semilunate, or circular, pore on the front 
wall. There is connected with this pore a physiological mystery, and 
there seems to be as yet no possibility of its solution. One species that 
I have just described in the Jesson collection (Cambridge Greensand) ! 
seems to be related to the group, but we have forms in the Carboniferous 
rock which apparently belongs to this, or some allied group not repre- 
sented in the Mesozoic rocks. These, however, we place at present with 
the Cyclostomata. | 
In the closer study of species which possess this pore below the orifice 
Mr. Busk has felt himself compelled to establish two families—the 
Oncuoporipz and Apronex—for two different groups in which this pecu- 
liar feature is present. In remarking on Onchoporide (Chal. Rep. p. 
102), Mr. Busk says: ‘ Considering, as Mr. Hincks remarks truly, that 
we do not know the physiological import of the lunate pore, and that the 
form of the mouth (in Microporella) is common to a vast number of 
species, I am not at present inclined to agree with him in regarding these 
two characters, even in combination, as alone suflicient to justify the 
association of such otherwise very dissimilar forms as Onchopora Sinelairit 
and Onchoporella bombycina, Busk, &c., with the Lepralian Microporellide.’ 
And again, in his elaborate introductory remarks on the family Adeones 
(Chal. Rep. p. 178): ‘The presence of a median pore or its equivalent, 
which though not formed in the same way in all the Adeonewx, doubtless 
subserves the same function in all, and in every case appears to me to 
differ widely in nature from the lunate pore in Onchopora, Microporella, &e., 
as well as from the tubular pores of Tessarodoma, Tubucellaria, &e.’ 
had prepared several original remarks on these pores which I had made 
in a study of the Microporella, Onchopora, and Adeonea in my cabinet ; 
but I thought that the authority of Mr. Hincks, Mr. Waters, and also of 
Mr. Busk on the same subject would appear with much better grace in 
this introductory part. Nevertheless I should strongly direct the 
attention of students to this subject, especially upon species from new 
localities. 
In his remarks on a specimen of Microporella fwegensis, Busk (Bur- 
mese coast), Mr. Hincks says that ‘the sub-oral pore presents some 
peculiarities. It is placed zmmediately below the rim of the orifice in 
front, and is only found in the adult cell. In the marginal zocecia the 
orifice is sub-orbicular and the peristome not elevated; but in a more 
1 Abstracts in Proceedings of the Geo. Soc. of London, No. 470, p. 74. 
i 
