436 General Notes. (Apri, 
meeting of the French Academy. One is a strange fish brought 
up from a great depth off the Morocco coast; it is about a foot 
and a half long, and of deep black color; but its most striking 
feature is its very large and capacious mouth with elastic mem- 
branes, much resembling a pelican’s. Probably, food is partly 
digested in this cavity. The fish (which M. Vaillant calls Buy 
pharynx pelecanoides) has very little power of locomotion. 
Brongniart described a new fossil insect of the order of Orthop- 
tera from the coal formation of Commentry (Allier). Insects 
are rare in the carboniferous strata; hitherto only 110 specimens 
have been obtained in the whole world. That now found is of 
remarkable size—about 10 in. long, and the family of Phasmide, 
or “ walking-stick insects,” is that which comes nearest to tt > 
Brongniart names it 7itanophasma fayoli (M. Fayol sent it), The 
upper part of the thorax not being preserved, it is impossible to 
M. de Merejkowsky dè- 
a sort of connecting link between Ciliates, which are 
ized by small vibratory hairs, and Acinetians, which have no 
hairs, but have suckers. : 
Echinodermata.—Professor Jeffrey Bell, in his notes on hele : 
oderm fauna of Ceylon (Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.) menn 
Antedon of unidentified species. Professor Bell concludes m 
tendency to fission under extenal irritation became in the Opi 
rids the parent of a habit of fission or simple reproduction% 
d 
5 
the of $00 
s 
irregular Echinoidea. There are two peri-cesophag al, afford 
vessels in each ambulacral zone, and a double sand-canal, pon 
ing a communication between the excretory organ an > net 
at Marseilles upon the hybridization of Echinoidea, ao 9 and 
perfectly developed plutei from Strongylocentrotus p 3. The 
Spherechinus granularis and Psammechinus puletrellis ©: the 
Same species, crossed with Spatangus Petar cus, T a regul 
Echinid, formed perfect plutei when crossed with female mia 
but 
both should be suppressed and the species included in So 
Mollusca —M. Bouchon Braudely (Comptes Rendus 
mie des Science) states that the Portuguese °Y* 
