138 THE AMERICAN NA TURALIST. [Vol. XXXVII. 



Kishinouye has recently published (Jour. Col. Sci. Tokyo, Vol. 

 XVII) descriptions of five new species of Japanese Scyphomedusai. 

 All represent new genera and one a new family of the Stauromedusa;, 



The octopod genus Amphitretus has thus far been known only 

 through a single specimen collected by the " Challenger " and 

 described by Hoyle. A second specimen taken by the collector of 

 the Missaki Marine Laboratory in the deep water of Sagarni Sea, 

 Japan, in 1897, is now described by Ijima and Ikeda (Annotationcs 

 Zoologiae Japonenses, Vol. IV). The animal, which was nearly half 

 a foot long, was bell-shaped, semigelatinous and more or less trans- 

 parent. The more important internal parts could be discerned through 

 the outer gelatinous layer in which chromatophores were embedded. 

 Unlike all other Cephalopods the mantle is fused with the siphon in 

 the median plane so that there are two branchial openings into the 

 branchial cavity. A colored figure of the appearance of this remark- 

 able animal during life accompanies Ijima and Ikeda's description. 



The osteology of the shoulder girdles of the hemibranchiate fishes 

 is the subject of a paper by E. C. Starks in Vol. XXV of the Proc. 

 U. S. Nat. Mus. 



Brief accounts of the development and degeneration of the eyes 

 in the blind fish, Amblyopsis, and of the structure of the degenerate 

 eyes in the amphisbaenian lizard, Rhineura, have been given by C. H. 

 Eigenmann in the Proc. Indiana Acad. Sci. for 1901. 



A summary of the questions concerning the propagation of the 

 common eel forms the subject matter of an address by the President 

 of the American Microscopical Society, C H. Eigenmann. The 

 address is published in the Transactions of the Society. 



The increase of mesenteries in the madrepore corals has been 

 studied by J. E. Duerden (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 7, Vol. X, 

 August, 1902), who finds that in most polyps of the genus Madrepora 

 only the six bilateral pairs of primary mesenteries are developed. In 

 any colony a few large polyps may possess a greater number of 

 mesenteries, in which case the new mesenteries are added as bilateral 

 pairs at only the two axial extremities of the polyp, the enterocoels of 

 the dorsal and ventral directives. The mesenterial increase is early 

 associated with fission of the stomodsum and in the end probably 

 with complete fission of the polyp in which half the mesenteries of 

 each fission polyp are derived from the primary twelve of the original 

 polyp and the other half are new formations. 



