628 REPORT— 1902. 



take no share in its formation, and that when first they appear they are disposed 

 at right angles to the parachordals and the axis, serially with the visceral arches 

 behind. '^^ Huxley was right ; and although this consideration by no means exhausts- 

 the category of independent cartilages now known to contribute to the formation 

 of the skull, it proves that the cartilaginous cranium, like the bony one, which in 

 the higher vertebrate forms replaces it, is in its essence compound. 



I now pass to the Invertebrata. Of the Oligochaeta and Leeches I have spoken, 

 and we may next consider the Arthropods. Of the Insecta, our knowledge has 

 gained precision, by the conclusion that the primitive number of tbeir Malpighian 

 tubes is six, and by the study of development of these in the American cockroach 

 Doryphora, which has rendered it probable they may be modified nephridia, carried 

 in as are those of some oligochjetes with the proctodeal invagination.'"' An ap- 

 parent cervical placenta has been discovered in the orthopteran HemimerKs, which 

 suggests homology with the so-called ' trophic vesicle ' of the Peripatoids, as ex- 

 emplified hy Parap. nova-hritannica}"' In this same orthopteran there have been 

 recognised, in secondary proximity to the 'lingua,' reduced maxillulse, which, fully 

 developed and interposed between the mandible and first maxilla, in japyx^ 

 Machilis, Forficula, and the Ephemei-a larva, give us a fifth constituent for the 

 insectan head.'°^ And when it is found that all the abdominal segments of a 

 common cockroach, when young, are said to bear appendages, of which the cerci 

 are the hindermost,'"^ we have a series of facts which revolutionise our ideas. 

 Little less striking is the discovery that in the caterpillar of the bombycine 

 genera Lagoa and Chrysopyga seven pairs of pro-legs occur.'"^ 



The fuller study of the apertures of the tracheate body has resulted in the 

 discovery that the Chilopoda are more nearly related to the Hexapoda than to the 

 Diplopods ; wherefore it is proposed to reclassify t)ie Tracheata, in accordance 

 with the position of the genital orifice, into Pro- and Opistho-goiieatu.^'^'-' In a 

 word the ' Myriapoda,' if a natural group, are diphyletic. 



Our knowledge of the Peripatoids (Arthropoda malacopoda) has increased im 

 all that concerns distribution and structure. They .are now known, for example, 

 from Africa, the West Indies, Australia, and New Zealand, and for examples 

 from the two latter localities and Tasmania the generic name Ooperipatus has but 

 lately been proposed, to include three species characterised by the possession of an 

 ovipositor, of which two have been observed to lay eggs.'"' 



Work upon the (Jrustacea in our own land, notorious for the tendencies of 

 some of its devotees in their stickling for priority, has within the la.st twelve years 

 advanced beyond all expectation. Much of our literature has been systematised, and 

 an enormous increase in our knowledge of new forms has to be admitted, thanks> 

 to memoirs such as those of the ' Investigator,' ' Naples Zoological Station,' andi 

 others which might be named ; while in the discovery and successful monograph- 

 ing, in the intervals of six years' labour at other groups, of a new family of 

 minute Copepods (the Choniostomatidse), parasitic on the Malacostraca, em- 

 bracing forty-three species, difficult to find, we have an almost unique achieve- 

 ment.^'' The hand which gave us this has also provided a report which embraces 

 the description of a nauplius of exceptional type, which, by a process of reasoning 

 by elimination, masterly in its method, has been ' run to ground ' as in every 

 degree of probability the larva of Darwin's apodal barnacle ProtoUpas bivincta, 

 of which only the original specimen is known. "'- 



There is but one other crustacean record equal in rank with this, viz., the 

 discovery of the genus Anaspides. Originally obtained from a fresh-water pool 

 on Mount "Wellington, Tasmania, at 4,000 feet, it has since been found in tw» 

 other localities.'" It is unique among all living forms, in combining within 

 itself characters of at least three distinct sub-orders of 'prawns,' for with a 

 schizopod body it combines the double epipodial lamellje of an amphipod, the 

 head of a decapod (pedunculated eyes and antennulary statocysts) apart from 

 characters peculiarly its own. There is reason to believe that the nearest living 

 ally to this remarkable creature is a small eyeless species {Bathynella natcoia) ob- 

 tained from a Bohemian well ; "* and if its presumed relationships to the Palaeozoic 

 ' pod-shrimp.s' be correct, this heterogeneous assemblage may perhaps be 



