32 HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT. 



the elephant, viz. for squirting fluid containing prey into their mouths. In this paper several 

 species are described, viz. (1) Meckelia annulata, the greenish form with white stripes previously 

 mentioned, which, if it had a terminal process, would be closely allied to Micrura fasciolata. 

 (2) Meckelia aurantiaca, a species (of Micrura) with a caudal process. (3) Opliioceplialus 

 auripunctatus, one of the Anopla. (4) Nemertes purpurea, Johnst., probably a reddish variety of 

 Lineus gesserensis. (5) Nemertes lactea, a species intimately connected with the Lineus lacteus 

 of Montagu. 



In the same year (1855) W. Stimpson 1 gave descriptions of some Nemerteans from the 

 China, Japan, and other seas. He considered the mouth to be the genital fissure. Two of 

 his species, viz. Valencinia annulata and Meckelia olivacea, seem to be identical with those 

 found in Britain, at least so far as one can judge from descriptions. External characters are 

 chiefly relied on, and the accounts of the species are comparatively meagre. 



Dr. J. E. Gray, 2 in 1857, made a few remarks on a large Lineus, which he had received 

 from Mr. Beattie, of Montrose. He correctly called the longitudinal slit the mouth, and pro- 

 visionally termed the animal L. Beatticei. Pour lithographic figures are given in the plate 

 connected with this paper, the three upper from the ventral surface of the snout in various 

 degrees of contraction, and the fourth a side view in semi-contraction. The preparation in the 

 British Museum is labelled by Dr. Baird " Serpentaria frqgilis" and in all probability he is 

 correct. It is a very large specimen, although fragmentary. 



In the ' Icones Zootomicse ' of Cams, Dr. Max Schultze contributes a paper on the structure 

 of the Nemerteans, chiefly of Tetrastemma obscurwn? He supplies no definite account of the 

 floor of the anterior chamber of the proboscis, or of the stylet-region, and the structure of the 

 latter is not advanced in detail beyond his previous description. The marginal stylets are still 

 termed reserve-stylets. No oesophageal division of the digestive tract is shown. He has endea- 

 voured to reconcile his older and incomplete representation of the circulatory system with modern 

 views by carrying the lateral trunks (which, in his previous figure, resembled the pale border of the 

 proboscidian sheath) into the snout, and introducing a central vessel from end to end. As might 

 be expected under the circumstances, however, some confusion occurs ; thus, the central vessel is 

 carried forward in the snout in front of the ganglia to the middle of the arch, instead of sending 

 ■off the anastomotic behind the ganglia to join the lateral vessels. The arrangement of his water- 

 vascular system is something quite different from anything seen in our examples. In his 

 former delineation I considered he had mistaken the ordinary blood-vessels for a water-vascular 

 system, but now, since he has put in the three main trunks as an entirely distinct series, our 

 decision is the more accurate. The author is somewhat confused in this matter. He gives two 

 new figures, one of which {Tetrastemma) correctly indicates the proboscidian bodies in the 

 interior of the proboscidian sheath, while the other is by no means a characteristic figure of 

 Lineus gesserensis, inside a sheath of ova. 



Mr. Beattie, 4 without reference to the Nemertean previously sent to Dr. Gray, goes on, in 

 the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society' for 1858, to relate that he had received a very long 



1 ' Proceed. Acad. Nat. Sc, Philadelphia/ vol. vii, pp. 381 and 389. 1855. 

 3 ' Proceed. Zool. Soc./ part xxv, 1857, p. 210, Annulosa, pi. 47. 



3 ( Icones Zootomies*/ J. V. Cams, part i, tab. 8, f. 10—15. Leipzig, 1857. 



4 ' Proceed. Zool. Soc./ part xxvi, 1858, p. 307. 



