1881. ] Scientfic News. 349 
opportunity to study them alive in the laboratory has been a great 
im 
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Oligochzta and Polycheta, is not a natural method of classifica- 
tion. The work upon the development of marine Annelids was 
Supplementary to an investigation which Mr. Wilson carried on 
last spring at Baltimore, and which he will continue this winter, 
upon the development of land and fresh-water Annelids. 
occur anywhere else, and of some genera and families which are 
new to the North American coast, this field has suffered almost 
total neglect. 
Nearly three months of the time of two members of the party, 
Mitsukuri and Wilson, were given to the study of the habits, 
are so intimately bound together that the community, as a whole, 
has a well marked individuality, distinct from that of the separate 
animals which compose it. The compound individuality of Re- 
nilla is quite rudimentary as compared with that of a Siphono- 
phore, and as there is no trace of it in the closely allied Gor- 
‘sms. With this end in view the anatomy of the fully developed 
community was carefully studied, and the formation of.a com- 
~ 
