1887] Zoology. 391 
ed pi fathoms. This accounts for the depths of some 
aces —Messrs. Danielssen and Koren have PENT ai 
Hyaster mirabilis, an Asterid with a central dorsal appendage, 
generally erect, but capable of motion. The describers conject- 
ure this to represent a larval stage of the Crinoidea, and suggest 
that further investigations may tend to prove that the Asteridea 
are developed from the Crinoidea. They also believe that all 
specimens of cluster-polyps yet found e mere varieties of 
Umbellula encrinus. 
Fossil remains of Holothurians are rare. Pocta describes 
allied: to Psolus. His paper may = io in vol. xcii. of the 
Sitzungsberichte of the Vienna Acade 
Worms.—Marion describes two species of Balanoglossus in 
the Archives de Zool. Exp. (iv., 1886). One, which he calls 
B. hackst, is from Japan; the other, B. taladoti, is from the Med- 
iterranean. His descriptions are accompanied by many notes of 
the minute structure, but he does not express an opinion as to 
the systematic position of these forms. He alludes to the wide 
distribution of the genus as indicative of its antiquity, species 
being known from the North Sea, the west coast of France, the 
Mediterranean, Liberia, the Red Sea, Japan, the eastern coast of 
the United States, and Brazil. The cartilaginous support of the 
proboscis (Bateson’s notochord) bears a marked histological 
resemblance to cartilage as found in the Vertebrates. 
In the same number Poirier has a paper on the Diplostoma- 
tide, describing the structure of some of these parasites taken 
from the intestines of various Crocodilia. A detailed account is 
given of he eto ornata, a parasite in the common alligator 
. luci h America, which the author thinks should be 
placed with this aaa rather than with the Polystomidz, where 
it had siege ead been plac ed. 
Mr. E. C. Bousfield gives a full account of the habits and of 
the best peiko of observing the genus Dero, which differs 
from the Naiades in having a respiratory apparatus at the end 
.of the tail. He diagnoses seven species, of which four are 
new. 
Mr. J. J. Fletcher has described nine new earth-worms from 
by the possession of complete circles of setæ, and by the pres- 
ence of two cæcal appendages of the large intestine S segment 
xxvi. ; the other by incomplete circles of sete and no cæca. 
The second number of the Fournal of the T venton (N. J) J.) Nat- 
ural History Society contains an anonymous “ key” to the genera 
