524 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [VoL. XXXIV. 
stitialis (?), Eupomaceutrus leucostictus, Teuthis hepatus, Teuthis ceruleus, 
Teuthis bahianus, Lactophrys triqueter, Chilomycterus antillarum, 
Scorpena plumieri, and Scorpena grandicornis. All of these are evi- 
dently species borne northward in the Gulf Stream. DSL 
Eigenmann on Blind Vertebrates. — In Science for March 30, Dr. 
Carl H. Eigenmann publishes his address as President of the Indiana 
Academy of Sciences on * Degeneration of the Eyes of the Cold- 
Blooded Vertebrates of the North-American Caves." In this he 
discusses in detail the eye degeneration of the cave salamanders 
and cave blind-fishes. He concludes that “degeneration has not 
proceeded in the reverse order of development. Rather the older 
normal stages of ontogenetic development have been modified into 
the more recent phyletic stages through which the eye has passed. 
The adult degenerate eye is not an arrested ontogenetic stage of 
development but a new adaptation, and there is an attempt in 
ontogeny to reach the degenerate adult condition in the most direct 
way possible." DSI 
Microbdella biannulata. — Under this name J. Percy Moore’ 
describes a remarkable leech of the family Glossiphonidæ, recently 
discovered by him in the mountain region of North Carolina, 
attached to the body of the salamander Desmognathus fusca. 
Leeches of the family named have somites ordinarily composed each 
of three rings about equal in width. In Microbdella, however, a 
typical somite is biannulate dorsally, uniannulate ventrally. The 
two rings into which the somite is divided on the dorsal surface are 
not of equal width, the anterior one being much broader and corre- 
sponding evidently with the first and second rings of a typical 
somite of Glossiphonia. The segmental sense organs of the dorsal 
surface are situated in the posterior half of the broad anterior ring. 
The single broad ring of which the somite is composed on the ven- 
tral surface is clearly equivalent to all three rings of a somite of 
Glossiphonia. 
Moore’s discovery shows the correctness of two general conclu- 
sions recently announced by W. E. Castle? as a result of studies 
made chiefly on Glossiphonia : 
i. The sensory ring of the leech somite is the middle, not the 
anterior ring of the somite, as has been generally assumed hitherto. 
1 Proc. Acad. Nat. Sct. Phila., April, 1 
2 Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts and Sci., i ag 1900. 
