444 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vov. XXXIII. 
but it would have been much better to leave that aside entirely; for 
the reader, noticing these discrepancies between recent and fossil 
forms, is not satisfied with the simple fact that things have changed 
since Tertiary times; and, farther, these paleontological introductions 
to each chapter cannot claim at all to be reliable; indeed, they ap- 
pear to have been written without the slightest knowledge of Tertiary 
— especially American — Mammalian Paleontology. A EO. 
from South Africa by Professor M. Weber, Sluiter’ finds four species 
and one variety, all known forms of Sipunculids, and one species of 
Thalassema, making a total of only twelve species and two varieties 
of these groups reported from the east coast of Africa. He explains 
the poverty of this fauna as due to the lack of extensive coral reefs, 
which are its fittest habitat. An appendix to the report deals with 
the form previously described by Sluiter as Szpunculus indicus Peters, 
which Fischer surmised was not the true S. indicus. Sluiter now 
proposes the name S. discrepans for the species, and gives an extended 
description of the differences between the two. Of especial interest 
is the dissimilarity in the structure of the skin, which appears to offer 
one of the readiest means of specific determination in this genus. 
In contrast with the poverty of the African coast, Shipley? reports 
a collection made in Rotuma and Funafuti containing fourteen spe- 
cies, of which two, Sipunculus rotumanus and S. funafuti, are new; 
one, Physcosoma varians Kef., has not yet been reported outside of the 
Atlantic, where it is common; and one, Thalassema vegrande Lamp., 
has been found but once before, in the Philippines. The other forms 
noted are common to various localities in the Pacific and Indian 
Oceans and Red Sea. 
The description by the same author of the forms collected by Dr. 
Willey? further shows the richness of this group among the Pacific 
islands. All the twenty-three species obtained are known forms 
belonging to Sipunculid genera, as follows: Sipunculus eight species, 
Physcosoma seven, Aspidosiphon five, and Cloeosiphon, Phascolion, 
and Phascolosoma one species each; of these, six are identical with 
species reported in the preceding paper. The author emphasizes 
1 Gephyreen von Siid-Afrika, nebst Bemerkungen über NAPR indicus 
Tons Zool. Jahrbiicher, Abt. f. Syst., vol. xi, pp. 442-450, 2 
eport on the Gephyrean Worms collected by Mr. J. sisi Gardiner at 
Rotuma and Funafuti, Proc. Zoöl. Soc., London, 1898, pp. 468-473, Pl. XX XVII. 
3 A Report on the Sipunculoidea collected by Dr. Willey at the Loyalty Islands 
and in New Britain, Zool. Results, Pt. ii, pp. 151-160, PI. XVIII 
