138 



Report on Zoology. 



tube is destroyed or broken it is rapidly reconstructed. The 

 contents of the stomach is found in all the lobules of the 

 liver, indicating that the food circulates in the hepatic 

 prolongation as it does in the annelids. Passing over several 

 other corresponding characteristics, Prof. Morse has made 

 the important discovery that the blood of the lingula is red, 

 a physiological feature of annelids but not of mollusks. 



The author of the paper believes the brachiopods to be 

 true articulates, having certain affinities with Crustacea 

 but properly belonging to the worms. 



At the meeting of 1869, Prof. Morse pointed out some 

 strong points of similarity between the brachiopods and the 

 polyzoa, proving them to be closely related, and he now 

 shows the polyzoa to possess many annelid characters. 



The removal of a large group of animals from one sub- 

 kingdom, or branch, to another and quite different one, upon 

 structural evidences is a matter which may well attract the 

 attention of naturalists, and we may expect to see Prof. 

 Morse's observations and statements strongly contested. 

 This is not, however, the first group of animals that has been 

 removed from the mollusca. It is not many years since 

 the class cirrepedae, which had long been regarded as true 

 mollusks were found to be articulates, and placed among 

 the lower orders of crustaceae. 



But perhaps by far the most important issue which has 

 been raised during the last year in zoological inquiries 

 respects the relations of that class of animals, very low in 

 the scale of existence, called ascidians. 



To transpose the barnacles or brachiopods from one great 

 branch of the animal kingdom to another is indeed a sub- 

 ject upon which naturalists look with great interest. 

 The ranking of the zoophitic polyzoa with mollusks was 

 a surprise to zoologists and the attempt to show that their 

 relations are really with the annulata at once suggests the 

 question whether after all there are not essential structural 



