1880. | Recent Mollusca during the year 1879. 429 
like the embryos of Cardium as figured by Lovén. The oysters 
seemed fertile at hardly more than one year of age, and from ripe 
individuals millions of ova were artificially successfully fertilized. 
A short paper on the anterior pair of muscles of the oyster, 
usually overlooked in descriptions of the genus, was presented to 
the Philosophical Society of Washington, by W.: H. Dall, and 
their probable homology with the pedal muscles of Dimyarians 
suggested. 
In the Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, 
July, 1879, Prof. A. G. Wetherby gives some notes in regard to 
the anatomy of Bulimnea megasoma Hald., especially in regard 
to the form and appearance of the soft parts, the digestive tract 
and the reproductive organs, which latter are illustrated by cuts. 
In a paper read at a late meeting of the Boston Society of Nat- 
ural History, by Prof. R. P. Whitfield, some singular changes in 
the soft parts of the above-mentionfed species are described as 
produced during confinement in an aquarium of successive gen- 
erations, the progeny of a single individual. An abstract of 
this paper has appeared in the Naturauist (Vol. xiv, No. 1, p. 
5-12). The individuals of successive generations diminished in 
size and the male organs disappeared. This, which has been 
ascribed by Hyatt to a change in temperature (l. c. p. 52), is per- 
haps more probably due to a deficient food-supply (this species, 
according to Wetherby, is partially carnivorous) and the action of 
the physiological law to which Meehan has frequently called 
attention, of the greater persistence in cases of pauperization, of 
female or mother-functions and members. 
“On the jaw and lingual dentition of certain terrestrial Mol- 
lusks, by W. S. Binney, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zodl., v, No. 16. 8vo, 
PP. 332, 2 pl. Cambridge University press, Dec., 1879. 
This important though brief paper comprises anatomical notes, 
chiefly in regard to.the radula, of Onchidella (Onchidium ?) car- 
Pentert Binney; Zonites whitneyi Newc.; Z. subplanus Binn.; 
Fanulus stephanophora Desh.; ¥. bifrons Lowe ; Urocyclus pees 
Gray (?); Cionella gloynet Gibbons: Hemitrochus milleri Pfr. ; 
Plagioptycha duclosiana Fér.; Microphysa stearnsit Bl.; T viedopsis 
vultuosa Gld.; Mesodon sayii Binn. var. Chithoweensis ; M. devia 
Gld: ; S Pinata humboldtiana Val. ; Ochthephila tiarella W.and B.; 
O. abjecta Lowe; Plebecula Drala. Lowe; Leptaxis undata Lowe; 
Veronicella (sp. iatiet and V. olivacea Stearns; Hemphillia glandu- 
