328 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Organisms in the Chicago Water Supply.* — As there may still be 
some microscopists who regret that they did not visit the World’s Fair 
at Chicago, they may like to know what was to be found in the water 
supplied in the grounds. Dr. S. E. Jelliffe found one Crustacean, two 
Rotifers, six Infusoria, seventeen Diatoms, and nine other Plants. This 
was indeed a place for collecting material. 
B. INVERTEBRATA. 
Natural History of British Columbia. — A beginning has been 
made with the preparation of lists of the Invertebrata of British 
Columbia. Messrs. W. H. Danby and C. de B. Green report on the 
Entomology, 'j' and Dr. C. F. Newcomb on the Crustacea! and Marine 
Shells. § 
Mollusca. 
a. Cephalopoda. 
Brooding Habits of Octopus Digueti.|| — Prof. E. Perrier and M. 
A. T. de Rochebrune describe the habits of this new Californian Octopus ; 
it lays its eggs in the empty valves of Lamellibranchs and broods over 
them. Each egg, of which there may be sixty in one bivalve, is con- 
tained in a thick ootheca, attached to a valve by a filament 4 mm. long. 
The young Octopod is, at birth, 5 * 5 nun. long and 3 mm. wide, while 
the yolk-sac is of considerable size. 
y. Gastropoda. 
Proboscis of Prosobranchs.^T — Herr A. Oswald has particularly 
studied the proboscis of Buccinum undatum and Nassa reticulata , which 
belong -to what Ray Lankester calls the pleurembolic type. Oswald 
proposes to call the space between the introvert or proboscis and its 
sheath the rhynchodseum, its anterior opening the rhynchostome , the 
opening at the apex of the proboscis the pharyngostome , and the oral 
aperture proper, where ectoderm joins endoderm, the gastrostome. After 
describing the complex musculature, he notes that the salivary glands 
open (ventrally) some distance in front of the boundary between the 
cuticularized (ectodermic) epithelium and the ciliated (endodermic) 
epithelium, and are therefore to be regarded as originally ectodermic 
glands. The musculature of proboscis, foot, pharynx, &c., is peculiar 
since its fibres do not consist of homogeneous contractile substance, but 
have the fibrils limited to the periphery around an axis of granular 
sarcoplasm. The author also discusses the mechanism of evagination 
and invagination. 
Nervous System of Dreissensia polymorpha.** — M. Toureng points 
out the existence of a supplementary, reniform ganglion between the 
cerebro- visceral connection and the branchial nerve. From this ganglion 
* Amer. Mon. Micr. Joum., xiv. (1893) pp. 310 and 11. 
f Bull. Nat. Hist. Soc. Brit. Columbia, 1893, pp. 11-18 (1 pi.). 
% Tom. cit., pp. 19-30 (4 pis.). § Tom. cit., pp. 31-72. 
11 Comptes Rendus, cxviii. (1894) pp. 770-3. 
^1 Vierteljabrsschrift Naturf. Gesell. Zurich, xxxviii. (1893) pp. 346-53. 
** Comptes Rendus, cxviii. (1894) p. 544. 
