Miscellaneous. 109 
Dr. Stoliezka gave a short sketch of the relations upra ven 
the Andaman and Nicobar reptilian fauna and t f 
one hand, and of Java, Sumatra, and the Philippine RN ep on the 
other hand. All these islands, &e., he said, have many species in 
common, e sten specially noticed the ve great number of vi- 
species has the poison-glands extending from the head to ao 3 of 
the total length of the body, ie free in the cavity of the anterior 
part, and causing the heart to be much further removed backward 
than is generally the case in other species of snakes.—From the Pro- 
ceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for April 1870. 
On the Organization and Embryogeny oh ae Ascidia. Min gir ees 
of Molgula tubulosa. By M. Lacaze-DvurnrE 
There are few zoological discoveries x have more EP 
- justly excited the interest of naturalists than that of the metamor- 
edd of the Ascidians, Savigny, in studying the Tees d 
these animals, found some little bodies ** among diss 
fated between the tunic and the branchial sac, ews appeared io 
significance of these little bodies was not really incontestably proved 
ilne-Edwards’s researches. 
The subsequent observations of MM. Kölliker, Van Beneden, 
Kowalewski, Küpffer, and of many other naturalists have only con- 
firmed the remarkable observations of the French zoologist; and 
now-a-days aou admits that all the Ascidians, when young, 
at their escape from the egg, have a larval form which makes them 
comparable, in appearance alone, with the tadpoles of the frogs 
This hitherto has been an opinion not only undisputed, but appa- 
rently indisputable. 
The anatomy of Molgula, one of the most interesting types of the 
group of esr Ascidians, has oceupied me during nearly two sum- 
mers. In studying its development, I wished to compare the mor- 
phological data furnished by the observation of — adult with those 
revealed by the — agar ce of the organ 
ppean 
comparatively easier; and it is by means of artificial fecundati 
that I have been able to follow the various transformations of the 
ovum, commencing with its segmentation, which is appreciable only 
