178 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 82. 



of 20 fathoms or less ; but the number of deep- 

 sea forms now known is nearly equal to that 

 of the shore-species of shallow- water forms. 

 The deep-water forms appear, however, to be 

 almost absent from the Atlantic, the Pacific, 

 and the south polar seas. The simpler forms 

 of the Pennatulida, especially those with sessile 

 polyps, inhabit the great depths. These, of 

 which the Protoptilidae and Umbellulidae are 

 the most numerous, are believed to be the 

 oldest, ' the last remnants of an extinct pri- 

 mary creation ; ' and of them the Challenger 

 discovered a large number of species, with a 

 wide distribution. This conclusion of the 

 author is of especial interest, since the pres- 

 ence of their less complex representatives in 

 deep water has been shown to be the rule in 

 other groups of invertebrates as well. 



The report upon the Actiniaria, by Profes- 

 sor Richard Hertwig of Konigsberg (vol. vi., 

 136 p., 14 pi.), is a veiy laborious and exhaus- 

 tive piece of work ; and the fulness of the 

 descriptions of anatomical details, as well as 

 the elaboration of the drawings, are causes of 

 surprise, when one remembers that zoologists 

 have hitherto usually refused to work with 

 shrivelled alcoholic preparations ; unless, in- 

 deed, drawings have been made from the living 

 animals. 39 species were examined, of which 

 30 were new. The reader shares with the 

 author his manifest disappointment, that the 

 study of this group suggests answers to so few 

 of the questions which naturally arise. At the 

 same time, we cannot fail to recognize the im- 

 portance of the author's concluding remarks, 

 in which he demonstrates that life in the great 

 depths has a visible influence upon the organi- 

 zation of the Actiniae, especially in the form 

 of the tentacles, and shows how the nature of 

 the food of the deep-sea forms has probably 

 favored the transformation of the long tenta- 

 cles of the ordinar} T littoral forms into tubes, 

 or even simple openings in the oral disk. In 

 the diverse arrangement of the septa in deep- 

 sea forms, he finds, also, an important indica- 

 tion ; namely, that the diversity in the structure 

 of the Anthozoa was formerly much greater 

 than it is at present, and that the remains of 

 this diversity have been more extensively pre- 

 served in the depths of the sea than in the 

 shallow waters. 



Professor Hertwig makes frequent allusions 

 to the work of the American authorities Verrill 

 and Couthouy ; and to the attainments of the 

 former, in this department of zoology, he pays 

 a well-merited compliment. 



Prof. Henry N. Moseley of Oxford has 

 printed his report upon the corals, chiefly in 



the group H}'drocorallinae, Helioporidae, and 

 Madreporaria, which is worked out with the 

 author's customary skill and minuteness. 

 Many valuable papers on the structure of corals, 

 based upon Challenger material, have also been 

 published by Professor Moseley in the Philo- 

 sophical transactions, and elsewhere. 



Professor Ernst Haeckel's paper on the 

 deep-sea Medusae (vol. iv., 259 p., 32 pi.) is, 

 in its first half, devoted to an elaborate dis- 

 cussion of the general morphology and histol- 

 ogy and phylogeny of the Medusae, having 

 special reference to the new morphological 

 facts derived from his study of this collection. 

 The essentials of this paper were embodied 

 by the author in his ' Sj'stem der Medusen,' 

 published in 1879 ; and it has already been 

 reviewed in Science, vol. i. p. 195. 



Professor Allman prints the first instalment 

 of his memoir on the Hydroida, which con- 

 sists of a report upon the Plumularidae (vol. 

 vii., 55 p., 20 pi.). The introductory remarks 

 upon the general morphology are of great im- 

 portance as bringing the subject up to the 

 present standard of information. It is pleasant 

 to note the appreciation with which the work 

 of Mr. Fewkes is now and again referred to. 

 Out of the 31 species referred to, 26 are new, 

 and a number of genera are for the first time 

 characterized. Professor Allman asserts, that, 

 in tropical and sub-tropical regions, this group 

 has its maximum in multiplicity of forms, in 

 the size of the colonies, and in individual pro- 

 fusion. He also calls attention to the apparent 

 existence of two centres of maximum plumu- 

 larian development, — an eastern one, in the 

 warm seas of the East-Indian archipelago ; 

 and a western one, in the waters which sur- 

 round the West-Indian Islands, and bathe 

 the eastern shores of central and equinoctial 

 America, — centres which are nearly coinci- 

 dent with those of maximum development in 

 the Chiroptera. 



Dr. William B. Carpenter's memoir on the 

 genus Orbitolites (vol. vii., 47 p., 8 pi.) con- 

 tains a resume of an investigation which has 

 been carried on by this veteran in deep-sea 

 research, extending over more than a third of 

 a century. The discussion of the four species 

 under examination occupies but a small por- 

 tion of the paper, which really deals with the 

 entire group of Foraminifera, and concludes 

 with a ' Study of the theory of descent,' in 

 which the power of natural selection to origi- 

 nate any varietal forms whatever is distinctly 

 denied. 



The report on the Calcarea, by N. Poljaeff, 

 of the University of Odessa (vol. viii., 76 p., . 



