460 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
anastomosing canals. At the level of their surfaces of contact, one does 
not, ordinarily, perceive two membranes, but one very delicate lamella, 
which perhaps represents a primary membrane. However, in old 
individuals, and above all in the case of Aulastomim , a complete fusion 
appears to be established, and this is particularly the case with the cells 
which form the collecting canals and the adjacent glandular cells. 
Similar relations are to be found in the segmental ribbon of Nephelis. 
In Clepsine there is a peculiarity in the mode of union of the segmental 
cells, for it is effected by very delicate prolongations of adjacent cells. 
In most cases the prolongations are equal in number to the canals of the 
region, and each gives passage to a single canal. 
Body-cavity Liquid of Sipunculus Gouldii.*— Dr. E. A. Andrews 
reports that a specimen of this Gephyrean of average size contains 
about 1 ccm. of a saline liquid which contains a larger percentage of 
sodium chloride than sea water, and is rendered turbid and reddish by 
the presence of definite solids. There are red, white, and giant 
corpuscles, with spermatozoa in the male, and eggs in the female. The 
liquid clots quickly on removal from the body, and when washed, the 
clot resembles vertebrate fibrin in appearance and many reactions. The 
colouring matter of the red corpuscles is haemerythrin, which is 
probably colourless when reduced, and seems to have iron associated 
with it. The presence of large amounts of proteid and saline material 
in the liquid is connected with its use as the only nutrient internal 
medium as well as the chief and ultimate respiratory liquid. The 
presence of iron perhaps indicates a genetic connection between 
liasmerythrin and the hasmoglobin of Phoronis and the Echiuridse, while 
the other characters favour the separation of the Sipunculids from the 
rest of the Gephyrea. 
Hew Phoronis.f — Dr. E. A. Andrews has a short note on a new, 
American species of Phoronis, which he calls P. architecta. It was found 
at Beaufort, N.C., inhabiting slender tubes which stand upright in rather 
impure or muddy sand. The tubes are isolated, and are formed by a 
clear, firm, chitin-like membrane, the upper part of which is covered 
with a layer of sand. The animal is about 50 mm. long and 1 mm. in 
its greatest diameter. There are about sixty tentacles which are 
arranged in a simple crescent. The lophophore is distinguished by the 
presence at either end of the crescentic bar of a large spoon-shaped organ 
which opens by a wide longitudinal slit into the extra-branchial or anal 
space ; the cavities of the organs are ciliated and lined by a peculiar 
glandular epithelium. At the base of each there is a spherical “ sense- 
lobe ” which appears to correspond to the “ glandular pit ” described by 
Benham in P. Kowalevskii. The organ may be supposed to play a part 
in collecting or fixing sand-grains to the chitin-like tube. The longi- 
tudinal muscles are greatly developed, the sexes appear to be separate, 
and there is a ciliated groove in the digestive tract. In the first stomach 
intracellular digestion is effected by irregular ridges of epithelium 
rising up around one or more large diatoms and inclosing them within 
a syncytium-like mass. 
* John Hopkins Univ. Circ., ix. (1890) p. 65. 
f Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., v. (1890) pp. 445-9 (3 figs.). 
