250 TBANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Bradney B. Griffin,* of Columbia University, reported 

 on the Nemertina collected by himself daring the previous 

 summer in Paget Sound and Alaska, and commented 

 upon " the occurrence of closely related though distinct 

 species on the west coasts of both Europe and North 

 America." 



Dr. John Murray has in recent years propounded the 

 view! that the marine faunas towards the poles are 

 genetically more closely related to each other than to 

 any intervening fauna; and he supports this "bipolar" 

 hypothesis by quotations from the reports of some of the 

 specialists who described the "Challenger" collections. 

 I do not know how it may be with other authors quoted, 

 but in my case the series of short extracts given from my 

 report require to be expanded and explained, and are then 

 seen not to give Dr. Murray's view the support which he 

 supposes. My remarks, on p. 265 of the Report, which 

 he quotes, refer only, it may be stated, to " Challenger" 

 species. In the genus Styela, for example, there are plenty 

 of species known from the tropics. Dr. Sluiter has 

 described about fifteen species from the island of Billiton, 

 between Singapore and Java. 



I consider that the distribution of Tunicata as a whole 

 does not lend any support to the bipolar hypothesis. On 

 account of the admitted want of equivalence between the 

 characters made use of in specific and generic diagnosis in 

 the different groups mere lists may be deceptive, especially 

 if drawn up and correlated by one man, who cannot 



* I am exceedingly sorry to see also a brief notice of Mr. Griffin's untimely 

 death on March 26th. He was a promising young investigator whose death 

 is a loss to Zoological Science. I had the pleasure of being accompanied on 

 my dredging expedition at Port Townsend last September by Mr. Griffin, 

 and was struck by his earnestness and devotion to work. 



+ "Challenger" Report— Summary of Results, p. 1440, &c, and Trans. 

 R.S. Edin., vol. XXXVIII., p. 344, &c. 



