770 ZOOLOGY. 
of robins build it. All the time of nidification eagerly watching 
the progress was a pair of kingbirds. Just as soon as the nest 
was completed these royal tyrants took possession. Of course 
* there was a deterniined remonstrance from Mr. and Mrs. Turdus 
migratorius, who had no, notion of being thus summarily ousted 
from a home which with hard labor they themselves had just built. 
But this king and queen Tyrannus conclusively settled the dispute 
by showing that might makes right, and Mr. and Mrs. Robin 
withdrew, as the only way to save their bacon. Having thus 
«jumped the claim,” the kingbirds took possession, and raised a 
brood of young in peace. One of the young ladies felt her sense 
of justice so outraged that she wanted to rout the invaders with a 
broom; but the captain interfered, and they were undisturbed. 
The very noticeable fact is that these ornithic scamps kept prying 
around, watching with genuine royal indolence the progress of 
the labors of the busy unsuspecting builders; then when all was 
finished, with true kingly impudence they took possession as of 
royal right.—SamveLt LOCKWOOD. 
ARACHNACTIS THE YOUNG oF Epwarpsta.—The genus Arachnac- 
tis established by Sars for a small floating Actinia has been studied 
by Busch and myself who came to the conclusion that it probably 
was the pelagic stage of an Actinoid allied to Cerianthus. During 
the last summer I have succeeded in raising from young Arach- 
nactis (like those described and figured by me in the Proceedings of 
the Boston Society of Natural History) somewhat older stages, 
and to keep them alive till they lost their pelagic habits, and re- 
mained more or less stationary on the bottom, creeping slowly 
along by means of their tentacles on the elongated column. 
The changes observed in the older stages of Arachnactis consist 
of the gradual resorption of the embryonic cells at the posterior 
. extremity of the column, the increase of the number of tentacles, 
taking place in pairs at one extremity of the longitudinal axis of 
the disk, the elongation of the column, the increase in size of the 
ovaries, the differentiation of the column into an anterior part 
where the partitions are situated, becoming externally more and 
more corrugated transversally with advancing age, this anterior 
part being comparatively capable of but slight expansion a 
contraction, and a posterior part of the column capable of great 
expansion and contraction, especially at the very extremity of the 
