582 General Notes. [June 
into two great groups, Calcarea and Non-Calcarea, maintaining 
that the two are perfectly distinct, and that there are no osculant 
groups first mentioned. 
As to the origin of the sponges, Vosmaer claims that our em- 
bryological knowledge is still insufficient to decide, but still that 
there is some reason for the belief that their ancestor was a free- 
swimming form, which may have been like the larva of some 
silicious sponge. The larva of Sycandra is too aberrant to hold 
the position of representative. First to be settled is the point 
whether the sponges are to be regarded as Protozoa, Ccelenter- 
ates, or an independent group. Vosmaer takes the latter view, 
and quotes in support Balfour, Heider, Bütschli, and Sollas, but 
fails to refer to Hyatt, who antedates them all in holding this 
opinion. His reasons are both structural and embryological. 
He fails to see that the sponges are degenerate Ccelenterata,—as 
is held by most continental students,—and claims that while the 
` stage. - That the sponges have indirectly descended from the 
Protozoa Vosmaer thinks probable, but he is at a loss for the 
generated to at least a considerable extent when the forms 
entered shallower cases. 
Parasitic Sea-Anemones,—Prof. A. C. Haddon enumerates 
(Sci. Proc. Roy. Dublin Socy., v. pp. 473-481, 1887) the known 
two genera Peachia and Philomedusa, the «latter of which will 
now have to lapse into synonymy. Peachia parasitica is a small 
sea-anemone an inch or two in length, which is usually formed, _ 
as its name implies, parasitic in the folds around the mouth of 
the large brown or purple jelly-fish, Cyanea arctica, Haddon 
ias some remarks on the number of tentacles and mesenteries 
_ in these forms, which lead him to the conclusion that the three 
families in which these parasitic sea-anemones occur are more 
