IN THE WAKE OF THE 44 CHALLENGER/ 
11 
nearly five statute miles. A tube-building annelid, making 
tubes from the sparse gritty matter of the red mud, was brought 
up. It was allied to the genus Oivenici , but had no cephalic 
branchia. 44 As bearing upon some of the most important of 
the broad questions which it is our great object to solve, I do 
not see that any capture which we could have made,” says Pro- 
fessor Wyville Thomson, 44 could have been more conclusive 
than that of this annelid.” The depth was practically 3,000 
fathoms, a depth which does not appear to be greatly exceeded 
in any part of the ocean. The nature of the bottom was very 
unfavourable to higher animal life, and yet this creature, closely 
allied to a well-known shallow water group of high organisation 
— the Clymenidce — was not developed. 
In dredging off Sombrero Island, on March 1 5, several sponges 
belonging to the Hexactinellidce were brought up, closely allied 
to those obtained off the coast of Portugal : showing that the 
distribution of this remarkable order is very wide. Two crus- 
taceans, belonging to the family Astacidce , were also captured, 
both totally devoid of eyes ; the one was a Willemoesia , * * * § the 
other Astacus zcdeucus. f Both were carefully examined by 
Dr. Suhm. Where the eye would be seen in A. fluyiatilis 
44 there are two round vacant spaces which look as if the eye- 
stalk and eyes had been carefully extirpated, and the space they 
occupied closed with a chitinous membrane.” 
On March 16 H.M.S. Chcdlenger arrived at St. Thomas, after 
30 days’ voyage from Teneriffe, having completed 23 stations. 
The natural history of this island, which belongs to Denmark, 
is fairly known, large collections having been sent to Copenhagen. 
Ophiurideans are particularly plentiful here. While dredging 
for algae Mr. Moseley brought up some specimens of a flower- 
ing plant, apparently Halophila ; a genus hitherto known only 
to occur in the Red Sea and in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.^ 
St. Thomas was left on the 24th, and the Bermudas reached 
on April 4, 32 stations having been completed. It may be worth 
mentioning that on March 26, in sounding at 3,875 fathoms, two 
Miller-Casella thermometers, which had been sent down, sicut 
est mos , with a ship water-bottle, attached to a 44 Hydra ” sound- 
ing instrument, came up broken. The mischief was traced to the 
giving way of the smaller, unprotected bulb. § Why should the 
* W. crucifer, T. L. S., Hid. pi. xii. fig. 10 j and “Nature,” vol. viii. 
p. 266. 
t T. L. S., Ibid. pi. x. fig. 1. 
X This plant was submitted to Prof. Ascherson of Berlin, who said that it 
was a congener of H. ovalis, and called it H. Baillonis. It was found half a 
century ago by Bertero. — “ Journ. Linn. Soc. Botany,” vol. xiv.-p. 311. 
§ A figure of the fragments is given in u Nature,” vol. viii. p. 110. 
