314 General Notes. [ March, 
peculiar radial arrangement of the organs of the body, but 
among the sixty-seven species here described are many which are 
without this radial arrangement, while in Stelechopus not even 
the muscular septa and parapodal muscles are convergent. This 
fact strengthens Dr. von Graff’s previous idea that the radial sym- 
metry was an adaptive change due to fixation. Several forms 
are entirely without suckers, while in M. ca/ycotyle the suckers are 
stalked. The Myzostomes are dicecious, but the sexes unlike. 
When inhabiting the same cyst the female is usually from fifty to 
a hundred times larger than the male." 
Crustacea.—Dr. P. P. C. Hoek found complemental males in 
nineteen out of the forty-one new species of Scalpellum gathered 
by the Challenger Expedition. Some of those complementary 
males do not show a division of the body into capitulum and 
peduncle ; a second section still without such division has rudi- 
mentary valves; a third has valves, capitulum and peduncle. 
Darwin's “ true ovaria” are believed to be pancreatic glands. 
Birds—Dr. W. Buller (Trans. N. Z. Institute, 1883) furnishes 
notes on some rare New Zealand birds. Sceloglaux albifacies, the 
laughing owl, has been found in deep fissures of the limestone 
rocks at Albury, near Timaru. Examples were procured by a 
process of smoking-out. In this species the male is the larger 
bird, and has a harsher cry than its mate. The four captured by 
Mr. Smith became quite tame, and in matters of food showed a 
decided preference for young rats, though they would eat 
mutton, beetles, lizards and mice. Their call on waking up at 
nightfall was “ precisely the same as two men cooeying to each 
other from a distance.” (The cry known as coo-ey is the call- 
note of Australasian settlers.) The rock-crannies in which they 
live by day and build their nests are dry, narrow at the entrance, 
and often five or six yards deep. They become almost naked 
while molting, and in this state two of Mr. Smith’s birds were 
stung to death by a swarm of bees.——lIt appears that small 
birds such as the silver-eyes (Zosterops) and the English sparrow 
are in New Zealand often killed by adhesion to the viscid carpels 
of Pisonia brunoniana or P, sinclairi, 
Pisces.—In a letter received by Professor Liversedge from Mr. 
investing gelatinous membrane about 34%4™ thick. The segmen- 
tation is complete. “Part of the blastopore remains open, and 
persists as anus 
x mud. It lies on its side like Pleuronectide among the Teleos- 
__ teans, and the oldest stages I have reared still show no traces of 
Sore >» The larval , I expect, will continue for many 
nent: S. A. Miller has probably already characterized this order from fossil speci- 
