176 



Spider, discovered by Mr. Cyril Crossland in Zanzibar, under the name 

 Desis Crosslandi. — Mr. Pocock also read a paper containing descriptions 

 of twenty new species of Harvest-Spiders of the Order Opiliones from the 

 Southern Continents. Two of these formed the types of the new genera 

 Sorensenella and Lomanella. — - P. L. Sclater, Secretary. 



2. Linnean Society of New South Wales. 



October 29th, 1902. — 1) On two remarkable Sporocysts occurring in 

 Mytilus latus, on the Coast of New Zealand. By W. A. Haswell, M.A., 

 D.Sc, F.R.S., Challis Professor of Biology, University of Sydney. — One of 

 these is the Sporocyst stage of a species of Echinostomum; the other that of 

 a Gasterostomum. Both are bright red in colour. In the former the Cercariae 

 are nourished, when the alimentary canal becomes fully formed, by globules 

 given off from the cells lining the interior of the Sporocyst, and. the mature 

 Cercaria, when it escapes, carries with it a small stock of this food-matter 

 in its intestine. The structure and development of the Cercaria are desrcibed. 

 The second Sporocyst presents the appearance of bright red branching 

 filaments extending in all directions through the tissues of the Mussel. The 

 Cercaria is a Bucephalus, the larva of a Gasterostomum. — 2) — 5) Botanical. 

 — 6) On the Mammalian and Reptilian Vomerine Bones. By R. Broom, 

 M.D., B.Sc, C.M.Z.S. The author shows that in the early stages of develop- 

 ment the" nasal capsules of the lizard and marsupial are essentially similar in 

 structure, and that in both a well developed paraseptal cartilage runs by the 

 base of the septum from the nasal floor cartilage in front to the hinder part 

 of the capsule. He also shows that the so-called "vomer" in the lizard de- 

 velops in connection with this cartilage; and as the dumbbell-chaped bone 

 in Ornithorhynchus and the median bone of Miniopterus also develop as 

 splints to the paraseptal cartilages (specialised as cartilages of Jacobson) he 

 concludes that these mammalian bones, are homologous with the so-called 

 "vomers" of the lizard, and are therefore really "prevomers". The median 

 vomer of the mammal is regarded as the homologue of the reptilian and am- 

 phibian "parasphenoid", as they are median splint bones developed along 

 the basicranial axis. The Theriodont Gomphognathus is shown to have a 

 large median vomer of mammalian type, and a pair of prevomers somewhat 

 after the manner of Ornithorhynchus. The Dicynodonts are shown to have 

 only the median true vomer developed, and in this agreeing with the Che- 

 lonians. In the higher mammals, as a rule, Jacobson's cartilage is supported 

 by the palatine process of the premaxillary, but though the process occupies 

 the exact situation of the prevomer it is argued that the palatine process has 

 replaced' the prevomer rather than that it represents that element. — Mr. 

 Froggatt exhibited specimens of the curious coccid, Frenchia casuarinae, 

 Mask., recently found by him on casuarinas, near Condobolin, N.S.W. ; 

 the species was originally described from the Wimmera district, Victoria, 

 and is now recorded for the first time from New South Wales. Also speci- 

 mens of the larvae of the pine-scrub beetle [Diadoxus erythrurus) recently 

 collected from dead or dying Currawong bushes [Acacia doratoxylon) on the 

 ranges about the Lachlan River beyond Condobolin. As living trees are to 

 be found side by side with dead or dying ones, and as some of the latter 

 may yield as many as half a dozen larvae, Mr. Froggatt expressed his 

 belief that in the locality mentioned the destruction of the trees was attri- 

 butable to the insects, and not to the drought. 



Druck von Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig. 



