ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
381 
received tlie spermatophores, but she takes good care of the eggs and 
young. 
After this introduction the author proceeds to consider the anatomy 
of the Galeodidm in its relation to that of other Arachnids, in order to 
show how near we may thus come to “ a reconstruction of an ancestral 
form capable of producing all the known Arachnids.” He discusses 
the segmentation, the waist or diaphragm, the degeneration of the abdo- 
minal limbs, the tracheae, the number of stigmata, the endo-skeleton, 
and the possible connection between bristle-formation and gland-forma- 
tion. We must content ourselves, however, with citing the author’s 
“ reconstruction.” 
“We must picture to ourselves a loosely segmented hairy creature, 
showing a slight waist-like constriction between the sixth and seventh 
segments. The first three segments are fused together, and distorted in 
such a way as to range two pairs of limbs round an anterior mouth which 
is at the tip of a kind of beak, These limbs are specialised for seizing 
prey and crushing it in front of the mouth. The four following pairs of 
limbs are used for locomotion, while those of the segments behind the 
waist, which are often swelled up by liquid food, are more or less 
riseless and degenerating. This, in brief, would represent the form from 
which, by modification and specialisation in various directions, all the 
existing Arachnida could be derived.” 
Notes on Hydrachnidse.* — Mr. C. D. Soar has 'collected in one 
season 32 species, representing 15 genera, within a radius of 20 miles 
round London. He makes brief notes on (1) the eggs and the variable 
period (12-38 days) required for hatching in different genera ; (2) the 
hexapod larvae and their diverse habits ; (3) the free-swimming nymphs 
with eight legs; and (4) the adults with their well-known brilliant 
colouring. 
g. Crustacea. 
Segmentation of Nebalia Ovum.f — Dr. P. Butschinsky describes 
the segmentation and the formation of the blastoderm in the eggs of 
this Crustacean. There is a large quantity of yolk, the main mass of 
which forms a granular clump in the centre, enclosing the nucleus. 
A thin protoplasmic layer lies peripherally around the egg. The mode 
of cleavage is of an intermediate character between the discoidal and 
the peripheral types. 
New Subterranean Isopods.]: — M. Adrien Dollfus first describes 
Sphseromides Raymondi g. et sp. n., found by P. Raymond in a Cevennes 
grotto. The body is oval and elongated (16 mm.); the first pair of 
antennae are shorter and more delicate than the second pair ; the 
mesepistoma is narrow and elongated ; the eyes are absent ; the pereion 
has the coxal parts well developed on segments 2—7 ; the posterior 
pereiopods are delicate, and those.of the first three pairs are prehensile ; 
the pleon has five free segments, the sixth having fused with the telson ; 
the uropods are subequal. 
The author then describes Stenasellus Virei g. et sp. n., a vermiform 
* Journ. Quekett Micr. Club, vi. (1897) pp. 318-21. 
t Zool. Anzeig., xx. (1897) pp. 219-20 (1 fig.). 
J Compte3 Rendus, cxxv. (1897) pp. 130-31. 
