ZOOLOaY AND BOTANT^ MICROSCOPY, ETC. 593 



A new family, which may be called PlceophysidEe, must be formed for 

 the reception of this remarkable form ; its affinities are difficult to make 

 out, but it has close resemblance to the Angelidse, from which it differs 

 in the characters of the hood. This hood appears to be homologous 

 with the nectostem of other Physophores, which assumes a variety of 

 shapes in certain genera ; the forms most nearly approaching it are to 

 be seen in Pleurophjsa and Haliphyta. In the Ehizophysidse the necto- 

 stem is ordinarily reduced to nothing or is wanting. 



New Pennatula from the Bahamas.* — Dr. G-. H. Fowler describes 

 Pennatula bellissima sp. n. from the Bahamas. The siphonozooids, which 

 are mainly placed on the ventral surface of the rachis, are specially 

 massed at the bases of the leaves. They are not separable into two types 

 by size or other characters, and are distinguishable from the immature 

 autozooids at the point where the two meet ; they have a strong siphono- 

 glyphe at the abaxial end of the stomodoeum. The immature autozooids 

 are not provided with tentacles, though they have stomodcBa and the 

 usual eight mesenteries ; they have a true sii)honogiyphe, though that 

 groove is wanting from the mature polyps. As the organ appears to be 

 useless in young buds, it would seem that we have here to do with a 

 case in which asexual ontogeny is repeating phylogeny. 



The spicules are long and fusiform, and apparently triradiate in 

 section. The new species appears to be most nearly allied to P. naresii, 

 but differs from it in the number of rudimentary leaves, the absence of 

 wartlike protuberances from the concave border of the leaf, the freedom 

 of the mid-dorsal line of the rachis, &c. ; the row of immature zooids is 

 characteristic of both forms. 



Actinise of Coasts of France.! — Dr. P. Fischer, in this contribution 

 to the Actinology of the French coasts, deals with the forms observed at 

 Eoscoff and at Banyuls. The work is purely descriptive, and the author 

 attempts to remove some of the difficulties which all must have felt who 

 have tried to determine specifically these variable creatures ; the modifi- 

 cations observed in different regions are duly noted. Sixty species in all 

 are now known from the French coast, seventeen of which are common 

 to the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts ; many are known in more 

 northern latitudes. Nineteen species are confined to the Mediter- 

 ranean Sea. 



Gonactinia prolifera.l — Herren F. Blochmann and C. Hilger give 

 an anatomical account of this Norwegian Sea- Anemone, the chief interest 

 of which lies in its power of asexual reproduction by transverse fission. 

 This appears to be quite a regular phenomenon. The first sign is the 

 appearance of small, bud-like projections, a little below the middle of 

 the body ; these are the rudiments of the new tentacles. They soon 

 exhibit a distinct arrangement in two rows, similar to that of the 

 circumoral tentacles. An oral disc and an oesophageal tube are formed, 

 and above the new circlet of tentacles the body-wall becomes marked by 

 a circular constriction, and grows inwards. Sars once observed three 

 connected individuals. 



Various modes of asexual reproduction have now been observed 

 among Actinians. The most ordinary is that first observed by Dicque- . 



* Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1888, pp. 135-40 (1 pL). 



t Arch. Zool. Exper. et Gen., v. (1887 [8]) pp. 381-442. 



X Morphol. Jalirb., xiii. (1888) pp. 385-401 (2 pis.). 



