ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
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become convinced that too much importance has been attached to the 
form of the shell, the number of turns, the proportion of the last turn to 
the others, and so on ; for these characters are very variable. He has 
found a more secure basis in the minute sculpturing of the shell. A 
frequent peculiarity is the enormous variability in the size of the adults, 
notably in the genus Ennea. 
Two Australian Solenogastres.* * * § — Dr. J. Thiele describes Notomenia 
vlavigera g. et sp. n., found by Prof. A. C. Haddon in the Torres Straits. 
The generic diagnosis reads: — Solenogastres with moderately strong 
cuticle, club-shaped calcareous spicules, ventral ciliated groove, fore-gut 
without radula and with lohed salivary glands, mid-gut with lateral con- 
strictions, efferent ducts of gonads with quite separate and independent 
openings, and with receptacula seminis. The other form is Proneomenia 
australis sp. n., which differs from P. Sluiteri mainly in having a biserial 
radula and numerous receptacula seminis. 
5. Lamellibrancliiata. 
Green Leucocytosis in Oysters.f — Profs. R. Boyce and W. A. Herd- 
man have demonstrated the presence of copper in comparatively large 
quantity in the green leucocytes, chiefly of American oysters, but also in 
“ natives ” from Falmouth and elsewhere. The green colour was in 
proportion to the amount of copper present, and the colourless leuco- 
cytes contained only traces of the metal. The deposition of the copper 
in large quantity points to a degenerative change, comparable to the pre- 
sence of iron in some of the leucocytes in man in cases of old haemorrhages, 
pernicious anaemia, &c. It was accompanied by a most striking increase 
of leucocytes, which tended to distend the vessels and to collect in 
clumps. The authors are not prepared to state whether copper in the 
food can bring about the abnormal condition, but they have abundant 
evidence that it may occur where no copper mines or other evident 
sources of copper are present. They are inclined to suggest that the 
increase of copper may be due to a disturbed metabolism, whereby the 
normal copper of the haemocyanin, which is probably passing through 
the body in minute amounts, ceases to be removed, and so becomes 
stored up in certain cells. 
“ Septibranchial” Bivalves.^ — Herr L. Plate has shown, by a study 
of the septum and its innervation in Cuspidaria obsesa , that this struc- 
ture is pallial, not ctenidial. Thus the term septipalliate should replace 
septibranchiate. 
Plankton Lamellibranchs.§ — Prof. H. Simroth has described Plank - 
tomya Jienseni g. et sp. n., a eupelagic bivalve from the warm regions 
of the Atlantic. The foot is degenerate, and the shell uncalcified ; the 
mantle contained numerous fat-globules. Various larval forms were 
obtained, all hemipelagic and eurythermal, with closed shells, no 
siphons, and two pallial muscles. 
* Zool. Anzeig., xx. (1897) pp. 398-400. 
f Proc. Roy. Soc. London, lxii. (1897) pp. 30-8. 
X SB. Ges. Nat. Frennde Berlin, 1897, pp. 24-8. 
§ « Die Acephalen der Pianktonexpedition, 1896/ 44 pp. and 3 pis. See Zool. 
Centralbl., iv. (1897) p. 563. 
