Echinological Notes. 
By 
Dr. Th. Mortensen. 
J£ 
On the "Cystacanths”. 
In nis magnificent work "The genus Colobocentrotus” (Mem. 
Mus. Comp. Zool., XXXVI, 1908, p. 30) Professor Agassiz has 
given the name %Cystacanths” to some '”"problematical organs” 
observed by Mr. Westergren in Podophora. Prof. Agassiz has 
further found these organs in Colobocentrotus and in Chætodiadema 
pallidum and he thinks that they also occur in Hapalosoma 
(" Haplos,”) pellucidum, judging from figs. 8—10, Pl. XII of my 
Ingolf” Echinoidea I. He adds that "it will be interesting to 
see if cystacanths are found in other echini and to obtain, if pos- 
sible, some clue to the function of these problematical organs which 
Suggest affinities both to the poison glands- of globiferous pedicel- 
lariæ and to the sac-carrying spines of Echinothurie”.... "They 
may be modified sacbearing spines, such as are found among the 
Echinothuriæ or modified pedicellariæ in which the glands have 
developed into the glands of the cystacanths at the expense of the 
valves,” 
In "Zoolog. Anzeiger” 10. Aug. 1909 (Bd. XXXIV, No. 20—21, - 
P. 623) Professor Agassiz publishes a short note: "Globiferen” 
and "Cystacanths”, in which he says that Professor Hamann has 
called his attention to the description of the "Globiferæ” of Sphære- 
chinus and Centrostephanus in the "Beitråge zur Histologie der 
Echinodermen” III. 1884; he agrees that "these organs are, as he 
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