SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



149 



attached to the mastax is correct. The eye moves 

 with the mastax, and seems to have no connection 

 •whatever with the cerebral ganghon. 



MOXOSTYLA yUAUKlUENTATA, Ehr. 



This species, or its American variety, occurs 

 here, but is not common. I have never captured 

 it until during the present summer (i8g6), and 

 then not more than half a dozen specimens. It 

 agrees well with the British form as described, but 

 it also possesses the undulating tube within the 

 stomach and continuous with the oesophagus, 

 which was not noticed by Gosse, nor recorded by 

 other observers, but which I have learned to 

 expect and to look for in American Rotifera of a 

 certain character. On the dorsal surface of the 

 toe is a minute conical papilla, placed so close to 

 the distal border of the single-jointed foot that it 

 barely projects beyond the margin. In some speci- 

 mens I have thought that I could observe minute 

 setas at its tip, but this is by no means certain. The 

 contractile vesicle is large, elongate-ovoid, and 

 placed parallel with the median line on the right- 

 hand side. The lorica is rather coarsely punctate. 



Pterodina patina, Ehr. 



Gosse says in his generic description, " I have 

 failed to find any dorsal antenna." In the Ameri- 

 can form the dorsal antenna is a single, minute 

 papilla, with an obscurely developed cluster of 

 setae, and situated in the median line at about one- 

 third the length of the lorica from the front, being 

 nearly in a direct line with the two rather con- 

 spicuous lateral antennae. It is seated above a 

 liguliform lobe of the cerebral ganglion, and shows 

 a conspicuous rocket-shaped nerve thread, but 

 whether or not this thread is above or within the 

 ganglionic lobe is not easily determined, although 

 it is probably above it. 



These are all minute anatomical points, but 

 insignificant and unimportant as they may seem to 

 the general reader, yet they are of value and of 

 great interest to the microscopical student. I 

 publish them here rather than in my country, in 

 the hope that the microscopical readers of Science- 

 Gossip may have these British species so favour- 

 ably placed that they may be able to decide 

 whether or not the animals possess the same 

 peculiarities as the American forms, or whether 

 climate, environment or some unsuspected cause 

 has made these American Rotifera to vary from 

 those bearing the same name in Europe. But it 

 seems hardly possible that the undulating stomachal 

 tube should be so conspicuously developed in 

 these American Rotifera and entirely absent from 

 the British. This alone is an anatomical feature 

 worth examining, and its presence or absence 

 worth deciding. 



Trenton, New Jersey, L'.S.J.; 

 September 1st, 1^96. 



THE THANET SANDS. 



T THANK Mr. Barham for his remarks in the 

 October number of Science-Gossip {anlc p. 

 129), and have been much interested in them. He 

 rightly says Bishopstone Dell, near Heme Bay, 

 runs back less than a quarter of a mile inland. 

 The gully, also, is about fifty feet deep. Its base 

 is the same as sea-level at high tide. A coast- 

 guard tells me that in rainy weather there is a small 

 stream flowing at the base of the gully. Although 

 with so short a length, it even now apparently has 

 a watershed. Mr. Barham says, " It is fairly 

 proved that the land has been eaten by the 

 sea. ' ' Where is there proof ? He says he has been 

 compelled to theorise about an actual sinking of the 

 land hereabouts. But why ? He does not say. 

 The Whitstable " Street," to which I made no 

 reference, I grant is possibly formed as stated by 

 Mr. Barham, and his remarks about it were of a 

 very interesting nature. It bears a resemblance in 

 its formation to the far-famed Chesil Beach. In 

 concluding, Mr. Barham refers me to the little 

 stream at Hampton, but, as it seems to me, only to 

 support my point. Now, as he says, this is a little 

 stream with an old bed nearly a quarter of a mile 

 wide. But why this former great width and the 

 present tiny stream ? A stream can silt itself up 

 to a certain point, but it cannot extinguish itself 

 over a width of the greater part of a quarter of a 

 mile. There must be something to assist it. What 

 is it ? I suggest it must be a rising land, which 

 has moved the drainage in another direction. Still, 

 there is all the difference between Bishopstone Dell, 

 where the occasional stream flows at the bottom of 

 a gully fifty feet deep, and where the Thanet sand- 

 clift's are visible almost to the bottom of the gully, 

 little or no alluvium being present, and the stream 

 at Hampton, where the Eocene formations are 

 hidden by a thickness of alluvium, or river-drift, 

 where there are no cliffs to speak of, and the whole 

 district is but a few inches above the level of the 

 sea at high water. 



Edwu. a. Martin. 



69, Bensham Manor Road, 

 Thornton Heath. 



"Cambridge Natural History." — Messrs. 

 Macmillan and Co., of Bedford Street, London, 

 announce that the next volume of the " Cambridge 

 Natural History " will be issued in a few weeks. 

 It will be upon various kinds of worms, and will 

 give an impetus to that little-worked group of 

 animals. The new volume will be vol. ii. of the 

 series. The subjects and names of authors are to 

 be as follows : Flatworms, by F. W. Gamble, M.Sc. 

 Vict., Owens College ; Nemertines, by Miss L. 

 Sheldon, Newnham College, Cambridge ; Thread- 

 worms, etc.. bv A. E. Shipley. M.A., of Christ's 

 College, Cambridge: Rotifers, by Marcus M. 

 Hartog, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge, D.Sc. 

 Lond.," Professor of Natural tlistory in the gueen's 

 College, Cork. 



G 4 



