108 BULLETIN OF THE 
procured. My attention in the following observations was chiefly di- 
rected to the growth of the hard parts of the body, often called the 
skeleton, while observations on the bilateral larva are simply introduced 
as they are thought to throw light on some of the many obscure ques- 
tions in relation to this part of the subject. 
I. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 
Many observers have called attention to the fact that A. squamata is 
viviparous. No one, so far as the literature has been studied, has seen 
the young in the American shallow-water Amphiura, although Lyman 
and others have shown its undoubted identity with the European, 
A. squamata. Of the other species of Amphiura which live in our waters 
no one has studied the development. 
Metschnikoff* has shown that A. sgwamata is hermaphrodite. This 
observation has been verified by Apostolides,t and I have found the 
male genital glands in the Newport specimens in the same position as 
figured by Metschnikoff${ in the European. Almost every specimen of 
Amphiura which was collected in August and September was found to 
contain young, while some had the male glands with lively sperm and 
young in various stages of growth in the same individual. This fact 
may look like self-fertilization. It remains to be seen, however, whether 
the sperm from one individual can impregnate its own ova, or whether 
this product from another specimen is required for this function. I am 
not aware that any one has yet succeeded in artificially impregnating an 
Amphiura with its own sperm. Self-fertilization may take place, but no 
one has yet recorded it. . 
My specimens of the adults were found in crevices of the cliffs just 
below low-water mark. We found good collecting-grounds on the south 
end of Castle Hill, at Price’s Neck, and near Horse’s Head, Conanicut 
Island. The adults prefer a bottom composed of broken Mytilus shells 
and small stones. Lyman§ has already spoken of their preference for 
a bottom of broken shells. With a long-handled dip-net a few handfuls 
of this bottom can be scraped up from the crevices, and the adults can be 
easily picked out of the fragments of shells with pincers. 
* Studien iiber die Entwickelung der Echinodermen und Nemertinen, Mém. 
del’ Acad. Imp. des Sci. de St. Pétersb., [7] XIV. 8, pp. 18, 14 (separate copy). 
+ le These. Anatomie et Développement des Ophiures, Arch. de Zool. Exp, et 
Gén., X. p. 204. 
t Op. cit., Pl. III. Fig. 1,B. Our Amphiura squamata is also hermaphrodite. 
§ Ophiuride and Astrophytide, I77. Cat. Mus. Comp. Zool., No. 1. 
