ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
539 
appear to be new. Owing to tbe condition of the preserved specimens 
the author is in many cases able to add to our knowledge of forms already 
described. Three species of the genus Heliaster were collected. A 
number of species described by Perrier and Sladen, or accepted by them, 
are grouped together under the head of Asterias sulcifera , and it is 
possible that others ought to be united with them. Having had before 
him 81 examples of what he calls Asterias rugispina of Stimpson, the 
author again has a synonymy of very considerable length. A consider- 
able addition is made to our knowledge of Cribrella hyadesi. Echinaster 
panamensis is a new species from the Gulf of Panama. It has a remark- 
able similarity in external appearance to the Mithrodia victorise described 
by Bell from the Atlantic Ocean. The characters of Poraniopsis echinas- 
teroides , first described by Perrier from Cape Horn, are discussed in 
detail. The wide distribution of Asterina stellifer, which is only known 
as a littoral form, is perhaps due to the fact that it also occupies the 
deeper and therefore the colder layers of the Atlantic Ocean. With 
regard to the genus Cycethra of Bell which either contains a single species 
C. simplex Bell, of great variability, or a very large number of closely 
allied species, the author’s three specimens do not permit of his saying 
much ; however, he states that these three do not exactly agree with any 
of the forms described by Bell, Sladen, or Perrier. The author suggests 
that a study should be made of the influence of growth on the external 
configuration of the body of these starfishes, and that the possibility of 
the differences being sexual should also be borne in mind. Luidia 
magellanica is a new species described from a single example taken in 
the Straits of Magellan. 
Starfishes from the Red Sea.* — Dr. F. Leipoldt in an appendix to 
his paper noted in the preceding paragraph, has a short report on star- 
fishes collected by Sig. F. Orsini in the Red Sea. Nine species in all 
were taken, of which one, Astropecten orsinii, is new. A. acanthifera and 
Ogmaster capella are for the first time described from the Red Sea, the 
latter being hitherto known only from China and Japan. 
Coelentera. 
Anatomy of Alcyonium digitatum.f — Prof. S. J. Hickson has made 
a fresh study of the anatomy of this common zoophyte of our own coasts, 
which, though not of a kind to lend itself easily to an abstract, is a very 
valuable addition to our knowledge of the animal. 
Mesoglcea of Alcyonium digitatum.J — Mr. W. L. Brown has a note 
on the chemical constitution of this layer. He finds it is chiefly com- 
posed of a hyalogen, a class of bodies so widely found among invertebrate 
skeletal structures and characterised by its insolubility and its con- 
version by various reagents into a soluble substance, hyalin. Prior to 
the conversion of this hyalogen into hyalin the mesoglcea will yield a 
mucin. The mesoglcea also contains a small amount of an insoluble 
albuminoid body, the nature of which was not determined. It does not 
contain gelatin or nucleo-albumen. 
* Zeitschr. f. wiss. Zool., lix. (1895) pp. 644-54. 
t Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., xxxvii. (1895) pp. 343-88 (4 pis.), 
% Tom. cit., pp. 389-93. 
