PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 511 
brought forward by Mr. Morse, and fully appreciating the careful and 
thorough nature of his researches, contended on the other hand that 
these facts were susceptible of quite another interpretation. 
Mr. Dall then went on to take up, one by one, the circulatory, nervous, 
muscular, and digestive systems of the Brachiopods, and to compare each 
with the same organs in the Annelids and the Mollusks, and came to the 
one of two great primary divisions of the Mollusca— one. the true Mol- 
lusks, typified by the Gasteropoda, and second the Molluscoidea, typified 
by the Brachiopoda. The second division would include the Polyzoa, 
Tunicata, and Brachiopoda, and Mr. Dall was of the opinion that these 
groups were essentially related to one another, and cannot be separated 
without violence to their affinities. 
In reply to Mr. Dall’s communication and objections advanced, Prof. 
Morse replied in brief 2s the time for adjournment had passed. He would 
only take a few moments in correcting some points in which Mr. Dall 
gen 
tacea, and does not occur in the mollusks. Mr. D d not know of any 
ubicolous worms having a blind intestine. Professor Morse referred him 
to certain worms in the inferior gr ws on on were 
development, the presence of a dorsal vessel, the terminal opening of 
ntestine, and the forward opening of oviducts. As to a comparison 
between the peduncle of Lingula and the syphonal tubes of Mya, the 
relations were so different that they could not enter the discussion what- 
ever. The related points, as indicated by the structure of the oviducts, 
demand a molluscan character in the Brachiopods. He then carried out 
the points raised by Mr. Dall, by citing other mollusks, with strong 
articulated features, which Mr. Dall had overlooked. 
: MAS MEEHAN read a paper “On the Laws of Fasciation, and 
m 
out in thick masses, which botanists called ‘‘fasciations,” and the people 
**Crow’s Nests.” An over supply of nutrition was the received theory 
of their origin. He believed the reverse to be the fact. In proof of this 
he stated that the shoots forming the bunch of branches never grew as 
vigorously as the others, the leaves were of a paler hue, and in evergreens, 
the leaves were deciduous. Many of the shoots died in severe winters. 
