22 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. II., No. -22. 



Phenogamsi 

 Formation of cystoliths. — Chareyre has exam- 

 ined the development of these bodies with special 

 reference to the source of tlie materials from which 

 they are produced. He finds that the food-reserve in 

 seeds of Urticaceae is composed of aleuron grains 

 possessing 'globoids;' and yet the calcareous mat- 

 ter forming the globoids, though disappearing at the 

 period of germination, does not contribute to the 

 formation of the cystoliths. Sometimes, when grown 

 upon pure sand, the seedlings exhibit the pedicle of 

 the cystolith, but nothing more. Upon chalky soil, 

 or even ordinary earth, the cystoliths appear very 

 soon, — in fact, as soon as the cotyledons are disen- 

 gaged from the seed-coats. If the seeds are made to 

 germinate in darkness, even if other conditions are 

 favorable, the cystoliths remain in the rudimentary 

 state. Furthermore, in some cases, cystoliths already 

 formed disappear upon keeping the plants in dark- 

 ness. — (Comx>tes rendus, May 2S.] G. l. G. [25 



ZOOLOGY. 



A new hydroid polyp. — Professor E. D. Cope 

 described an interesting form of hydroid polyp found 

 in large numbers on the bark of submerged trees in 

 Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon. Its coenoecium is a 

 mass of creeping yellowish stems embedded in sar- 

 code. Eacli zooid is of an elongate oval form, sessile, 

 and with six rays of equal size, each one-half as long 

 as the body. The zooids are translucent, but with 

 two oval bodies in the lower half of the body-cavity 

 of a yellow color. These are collected in masses as 

 large as the fist. The length of each zooid is one 

 millimetre. They did not extend themselves beyond 

 this length, neither did the rays elongate to beyond 

 half the same during the time they were observed. 

 They retracted themselves on being irritated. They 

 do not possess any fringes like the arms of the 

 polyzoa. As the possession of a coenoecium dis- 

 tinguishes this genus from all the fresh-water hy- 

 droids, it was proposed to distinguish it as the type 

 of a new genus with the name Rhizobydra, the 

 species being named flavitincta. An attempt to pre- 

 serve some of the masses of zooids in alcohol was 

 not successful. — {Acad. nat. sc. Philad. ; meeting 

 June 19.) [26 



MoUnsks. 



Abyssal mollusks.— The fifth part of the Mol- 

 lusca of the Lightning and Porcupine expeditions, 

 by Dr. .L Gwyn .Jeffreys, has been received. It treats 

 of the Solenoconchia, Polyplacophora, Docoglossa, 

 and scutibranchiate limpets, contains supplementary 

 notes to the preceding four parts, and is illustrated by 

 two excellent plates. The number of species first 

 described herein is not large; but a surprising num- 

 ber of facts as to distribution, synonymy, biography, 

 and external anatomy, are brought together. In 

 adopting a later name than Acmaea for that genus, 

 he observes that in the original description no type 

 or species was mentioned by Eschscholtz, but has 

 apparently overlooked the fact that the same is true 

 of the genus Tectura, by which he would replace 



Acmaea. Parts xv. and xvi. of the preliminary 



descriptions of the Mollusca of the Challenger expe- 

 dition, by Rev. R. Boog- Watson, are at hand. They 

 cover the Ranellidae, Muricidae, Scalariidae, and 

 Solariidae in the first, and the Fissurellidac and 

 Cocculinidae in the second part. Quite a number of 

 the species are from comparatively shallow water. 

 Eight new species of Puncturella were obtained 

 from one dredging at a locality north of Culebra 

 Island, near St. Thomas, in the Danish West Indies. 

 One of these is the largest yet known. The common 

 Puncturella noachina Linn, of British, north-east 

 American, and Alaskan seas was obtained in the 

 Straits of Magellan, at Kej-guelen Island, and at a 

 station between these two, which seems truly re- 

 markable. The operculum of Nassaria kampyla 

 Watson, and the dentition of a new species of Coccu- 

 lina from the Philippine Islands, are figured. The 

 teeth closely resemble in general features those of 

 the American species, except that the median tooth 

 is more, and the major laterals less, developed than 

 in the forms obtained by the U. S. fish-commission. 

 The descriptions are in the full and faithful manner 

 characteristic of Mr. Watson's work. — w. H. D. 



[27 



Haemoglobin in the blood of Branchiopoda. 



— Some years ago E. Van Beneden discovered a dou- 

 ble system of circulation in some of the parasitic 

 Copepoda like that in many annelids, and described 

 a complicated system of vessels with true walls, filled 

 with a red fluid containing haemoglobin, but no cor- 

 puscles, and entirely distinct from the lacunar sys- 

 tem with colorless fluid containing corpuscles. P. 

 Regnard and R. Blanchard find a similar system in 

 Apus, and believe that it exists also in some Cladocera 

 and Ostracoda. Chemical examination convinces 

 them that true haemoglobin is present in the blood 

 of Apus, is always combined with oxygen, and plays 

 some part in respiration. — {Zool. anz., May 7, 1883.) 

 s. I. s. [28 



Fresh-'water Copepoda. — F. W. Cragin enu- 

 merates the genera of free-swimming Copepoda 

 known to inhabit inland waters, descriljes and fig- 

 ures ten species of Cyclops, half of them new, from 

 Cambridge, Mass., and piiblishes a translation of de- 

 scriptions in Russia of several species of Cyclops by 

 Poggenpol. Mr. Cragin notes the occurrence of the 

 gregarinian, Lagenella nobilis, in North American 

 species of Cyclops. — (Trans. Kansas acad. sc, viii. 

 1883.) s. I. s. [29 



The male genital armature of Lepidoptera. — 



Considering how important a use has been made of 

 these organs to distinguish species in nearly all other 

 groups of insects, it is a little surprising to see how 

 few lepidopterists have availed themselves of the 

 excellent marks of distinction they afford. Rambur 

 in 1839 (whose writings Gosse in the paper before us 

 entirely overlooks), de Haan in 1842, and recently Bu- 

 chanan White, are the only European authors who 

 have paid any attention to these organs in butterflies ; 

 and Scudder and Burgess stand alone in this country. 



