132 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
up by Prof. L. Roule. Forty-five species were collected, and the groups 
best represented were the Alcyonaria, Antipatliidas, and Hexacoralla. 
No new species are described, but the collection is of great importance 
as confirming the doctrine of the extreme uniformity of abyssal, 
faunae. 
Funiculina and Kophobelemnon.* — Mr. J. A. Grieg has taken the 
opportunity of studying a young (175 mm. long) specimen of Funiculina 
quadrangularis , to compare it with Leptoptilium gracile var. norvegicum , 
and he comes to the conclusion that they are identical ; but he is careful 
to limit himself to the variety in question, and does not at present ven- 
ture to strike out the whole genus and species. The author significantly 
remarks that it can hardly be a mere accident that two such charac- 
teristic forms as Funiculina and Kophobelemnon occur in both the Northern 
and the Southern Seas. 
Variations in Eucope.f — Prof. A. Agassiz and Dr. W. M‘M. Wood- 
worth have been engaged in a study of the variations of this jelly-fish, 
and for that purpose have examined nearly four thousand specimens. Into 
the statistical details it is, of course impossible for us to enter, but we 
may say that there is no such general correlation between the number of 
segments, of genital sacs, of buccal lobes, and of tentaculocysts in Eucope 
as there is in Aurelia. Neither multiplication nor abortion of parts in 
Eucope is symmetrical. The suppression of genital sacs, which is rare 
in Aurelia , is quite common in Eucope. 
Porifera. 
Sponges of the ‘ Caudan ’ Expedition.^ — M. E. Topsent dismisses 
most of the Sponges collected by Prof. Koehler in the Bay of Biscay as 
“ banales,” but he finds points of interest in Pliegadrella phoenix 0. S., 
in Hyalonema infundibulum and Leptosia Koehleri, which are new, and in 
some others ; attention is drawn to the wide geographical distribution of 
Gellius flag el-lifer of Ridley and Dendy. 
Non-Calcareous Sponges from Port Phillip Heads.§ — Prof. A. Dendy 
has published the second part of his catalogue of the Sponges collected 
at Port Phillip Heads by the late Mr. Bracebridge Wilson. He here 
deals with the Monaxonid family Desmacidonidae, which are very abun- 
dant in Victorian waters ; no less than fifty-eight species are here cata- 
logued, of which twenty-eight appear to be new. For the three new 
genera which Prof. Dendy finds himself called upon to establish the 
names Microtylotella , Ampliiastrella and Fusifer are proposed. 
Protozoa. 
Foraminifera of the Adriatic.|| — Sig. A. Silvestri has published his 
first contribution to this subject, which does not appear to have excited 
the interest of any modern investigator. The author here enumerates 
sixty-two distinct “ forms ” which belong to forty-six species, and these 
* Bergens Museums Aarbog, 1896, No. iii., 11 pp. 
t Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., xxx. (1896) pp. 121-50 (9 pis.). 
j Resultats Scient. de la Campagne du 4 Caudau,’ faac. ii. (1896) pp. 273-97 
(1 pi.). § Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria, viii. (1896) pp. 14-51. | 
|j Atti Acad. Sci. Acireale, vii. (1896) pp. 27-63. 
