150 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



to the printer, I received through the kindness of M. 

 Fernand Lahille a copy of his recent comprehensive work* 

 on the French Tunicata. In this volume Lahille combines 

 with some very useful original investigations an unfortu- 

 nate attempt to remodel the entire classification of the 

 Tunicata in accordance with his previously published, 

 and I consider quite erroneous, views in regard to the 

 relative importance of the characters usually employed in 

 defining groups. He has, I believe, in most of those portions 

 of his system of classification which are novel, departed 

 from the natural or genetic arrangement, but as I intend 

 to deal with this general question elsewhere,! I shall merely 

 insert here a few remarks upon those passages of Lahille's 

 work which bear upon Ecteinascidia and the Clavelinidse. 

 By practically ignoring the important characteristic of 

 reproduction by gemmation so as to form colonies, and by 

 giving an undue importance to certain structural features 

 of the branchial sac, Lahille is led to dismember the family 

 Clavelinidse, and to place (1) Clavelina beside Distaplia 

 in the family Distomidse; (2) Ecteinascidia and Bhopalceat 

 along with the Compound Ascidian Tylobranchion and 

 Diazona beside the Simple Ascidian Ciona, and (3) Pero- 

 phora, Pei'ophoropsis and Sluiteria in the family Ascidiidse 

 beside the typical Simple Ascidians, — thus separating 

 Sluiter's two species of Ecteinascidia much more widely 

 even than Ed. Van Beneden does, and placing them in 

 distinct families. Lahille recognises Ecteinascidia (in the 

 restricted sense) and Bhopalcea as distinct though closely 

 related genera, and he describes a new species, Bh. cerbe- 

 riana, which has the minute plication of the branchial sac 



* Recherches sur les Tuniciers cles cotes de France ; Toulouse, 1890. 

 + In a work giving a detailed classification, with diagnoses, of tlie Tnnicata, 

 npon which I have heen engaged for some time. 



X Or " Rliopalona," as the genus is generally spelt by the French authors. 



