1880. | Zo0logy. 211 
a large number in the writer’s notes, it will be seen that our 
notions of the geographical distribution of marine forms must be 
considerably modified and that the number of known species is 
considerably less than the number of descriptions of supposed dis- 
tinct forms would indicate. I find the fiddler crabs enumerated 
under nearly one hundred distinct names, while the number of 
species will not much exceed forty, and this confusion has pro- 
ceeded partly from the idea that distinct localities must have dis- 
tinct forms and partly from assuming that minute variable charac- 
ters were of specific importance; and I would here say that my 
own work in both of these respects has not been altogether fault- 
less, but I hope ere long to correct my sins of Omission and com- 
mission— JF. S. Kingsley. 
THE PSOROSPERMS FOUND IN APHREDODERUS SAYANUS.—Mr. W. 
P. Seal recently brought me a specimen of this curious little fish, 
which he had obtained near Woodbury, N. J. The specimen had 
interested him on account of the great number of large white 
cysts imbedded in its muscles just beneath the skin, causing the 
latter to swell outwards, producing an appearance of lumps on 
the body, as if diseased. When the little animal was held between 
the eye and light, the embedded cysts being opaque, made it easy 
to locate each one, and I have sketched this appearance in the 
accompanying outline (Fig. 1, A) of the fish with the cysts in place. 
here were about twenty of these cysts in all, which were found 
to be arranged as a rule 7 
in pairs on the opposite 
mea of the body of the Q 
= 
a 
ra 
O 
o 
RA g 
3 
B 
n 
a 
ch 
G 
m 
Nn 
I 
cape. Upon examining > 
this material with a power 
of 900 diameters it was 
found to be entirely com- 
sed of very minute 
ovoid bodies with a tail, as : 
shown in Fig. 2D a pair Fic. 1.—Psorosperms in the pirate perch. B, 
of nucleated elongate bod- ‘Yst much enlarged. 
ies were enclosed and attached to the membranous body-wall of 
what appeared to be the head end. There were many thousands 
of these bodies in a single cyst, and were it not that the tail did 
not exhibit the slightest movement, they might have been regarded 
aS spermatozoa. A very few were seen without a tail as in Fig 
