728 REPORT— 1895. 



10. On Economy of Labour in Zoology. 

 By Thomas R. R. Stebbing, M.A. 



Founding his case upon the presumed admission that the knowledge of natural 

 history has increased, is increasing, and ought not to be diminished, the author 

 argues that measures are now urgently required for facilitating the survey of this 

 extensive and ever-extending body of information. He gives examples of the 

 onerous conditions of study resulting from the existing state of scientific literature. 

 He proposes that an effort should be made to gather into a succinct form all the 

 most indispensable knowledge in each branch of zoology, instead of leaving each 

 student to gather it as best he may from an unwieldy mass of miscellaneous 

 writings. 



The proposals now current for a new system of recording in zoology are 

 cordially endorsed. As the uniformity, simplicity, and completeness aimed at by 

 those proposals will, if successfully attained, give workers in general a clue through 

 the maze of future discoveries, it is urged that at this parting of the ways the 

 opportunity .should be seized for dealing with past acquisitions. They need" to be 

 presented with the utmost conciseness to which skill and method can reduce 

 materials so vast and various, and sometimes so vague and so redundant. 



The point is insisted on that, however lowly may be the place in science of 

 systematic zoology, it is after all a department which must exist. Although the 

 service indicated is needed for all the other departments, systematic zoology is the 

 one to which it is most necessary and can most easil_y be rendered. At tlie same 

 time the undertaking is not of a character to promise an immediate return of 

 commercial profit. But just as great public works are carried out by Government 

 at the expense of the nation, so this scientific work appeals to tlie fostering care of 

 those societies whicli are by their eminence entitled and by their financial position 

 enabled to act for the commonwealth of ,'^cience. 



11. On tlie Septal Organs q/Owema fusiformis. By Professor G. Gilson. 



The object of this communication is to call attention to certain peculiarities 

 presented by the septa of Owenia fusiformis, and to obtain information from the 

 anatomists who may have observed similar features in other tubicolous annelids. 



These .septa, witli the exception of the first, or cephalic, and the most remote 

 ones in the tail, are all perforated. Each of them presents two pores, through 

 which the adjoining segments communicate. 



These pores are provided with a muscular apparatus, very powerful in certain 

 of the septa, and sometimes rather complicating their structure. 



The second septum, for instance, which is the most muscular of all, contains, on 

 each side of the ventral median line, an enormous ovoid mass of muscles, the fibres 

 of which run in various directions. Through these muscles passes a tiny canal. 

 This septal canal is very sinuous in its course through the muscular organ, and its 

 existence is far from being easily recognised, owing to the state of violent contrac- 

 tion in which the muscles are always ibund in sections. There is no doubt, how- 

 ever, that the septal canals may open widely enough to allow the eggs to pass and 

 to reach the fifth segment of the body, which is the only one that communicates 

 with tlie exterior, through the modified uephridia described in the author's paper 

 last year at Oxford. 



Besides the canals and their muscles, the fifth septum contains a semicircular 

 rnuscle which seems to be intended to constrict tlie intestine, which, ju.st where it 

 pierces tlie septum, becomes suddenly very narrow and acquires a very thick 

 muscular coat. 



All the septa present .similar structures, more or less complicated, until in the 

 posterior ones the septal pores are reduced to a short perforation, surrounded by a 

 thin muscular ring. 



But in the fifth and sixth septa a new feature appears : the muscular, sphincter- 

 like mass on each side is joined by a tubular ingrowth of the epiderm. This tube 



