ON TUE ZOOLOGICAL STATION AT NAPLES. 257 



The following works are in the press : — J. Fraipont, ' Polygordius ' ; 

 H. Eisig, ' Capitellidae.' 



Monographs by Gr. von Koch on ' Gorgoniidte,' by P. Falkenberg on 

 • Rhodomeleae,' and by J. W. Spengel on ' Balanoglossus ' will subse- 

 quently appear, the plates being now in the press. 



(2) Of the ' Mittheilungen aus der Zoologischen Station zu Neapel ' 

 vol. vi. is completed (756 pp., 32 plates). 



(3) The ' Zoologischer Jahresbericht' for 1884 (1499 pp.) is published. 

 The editors and the general arrangement of the sections are the same 

 as in the preceding year. The ' Bericht ' for 1885 is in the press. 

 The index (register) will be given in greater detail than in previous 

 years. 



(4) Of the Guide to the Aquarium (printed in German, English, 

 Italian, and French) a second Italian edition has been published. 



Extracts from the General Report of the Zoological Station. — The 

 oflBcers of the station have courteously furnished lists (1) of the natu- 

 ralists who have occupied tables since the last Report, (2) of the works 

 published during 1885 by naturalists who have worked at the Zoological 

 Station, (3) ot the specimens sent out by the station during the past 

 year. These details, which will be found at the end of this Report, 

 are the strongest evidence of the activity and efiiciency of the institu- 

 tion. 



The British Association Table. — During the past year Dr. Robert 

 Scharff", who had been nominated by your Committee, has been kindly 

 allowed by Professor Dohrn to occupy a table for a period of nearly six 

 months (December to May), in accordance with the generous undertaking 

 contained in his letter already quoted. Dr. Scharff has been engaged in 

 several important investigations, the results of which he hopes to publish 

 during the coming winter. His report on the occupation of the table is 

 appended. 



I. Report on the Occupation of the Table, by Dr. Robert Scharff. 



I commenced my studies at the Zoological Station by taking up the 

 small group of the ChlorhaBmidse. Several species of this group of 

 marine Annelids are pretty abundant in the bay, such as Siphonostoma 

 diplochcetum and Stylarioides vionilifer. I examined a number of them 

 anatomically, but before I had quite concluded my researches my attention 

 was drawn by Professor Dohrn to a more interesting field of study, 

 namely, the gills of Elasmobranch fishes. 



Since the publication of the series of articles on the origin of Verte- 

 brates by Professor Dohrn, anything regarding the development and 

 structure of the gills of fishes has been received with much greater inter- 

 est by scientists than formerly. Several organs having now quite a dif- 

 ferent function are stated by Dohrn to have been merely gill-clefts in the 

 ancestral vertebrate. Thus the mouth was primitively a pair of gill- clefts 

 which have coalesced and come to open in front. The organ of smell is 

 also supposed to represent a gill-cleft. "With regard to the mouth, strong 

 additional support is given to Dohrn's theory by Beard's researches on 

 the ' Branchial Sense-organs in Ichthyopsida.' On the other hand, Blaue's 

 as well as Beard's discoveries do not lend any support to the view of the 

 nose having been a gill-cleft. 



1886. s 



