subsequently picked up on the shore and returned duly filled in and signed. They come from various parts of the coast of the Irish Sea-Scotland, England, Wales, Isle of Man, and Ireland. Some of the bottles have gone quite a short distance, having evidently been taken straight ashore by the rising tide. Others have been carried an unexpected length, e.g., one (No. 35), set free near the Crosby Light Vessel, off' Liverpool, at 12.30 P.M., on October 1, was picked up at Saltcoats, in Ayrshire, on November 7, having travelled a distance of at least 180 miles in thirtyseven days; another (H. 20) was set free near the Skerries, Anglesey, on October 6, and was picked up, one mile north of Ardrossan, on November 7, having travelled 150 miles in thirty-one days; and bottle No. 1, set free at the Liverpool Bar on September 30, was picked up at Shiskin, Arran, about 165 miles off, on November 12. On the other hand, a bottle (J. F. 34) set free on November 7, at the Ribble Estuary, was picked up on November 12 at St. Anne's, having gone only 4 miles.

It would be premature as yet-until many more dozens or hundreds have been distributed and returned to draw any very definite conclusions. It is only by the evidence of large numbers that the vitiating effect of exceptional circumstances, such as an unusual gale, can be eliminated. Prevailing winds, on the other hand, such as would usually affect the drift of surface organisms, are amongst the normally acting causes which we are trying to ascertain. We may, however, state, for what they are worth, the following results obtained so far:-(1) Nearly 50 per cent. of the bottles found have been carried across to Ireland, and they are chiefly ones that had been set free in the southern part of the district (between Liverpool and Holyhead) and off the Isle of Man; (2) the bottles set free along the Lancashire coast and in Morecambe Bay seem chiefly to have been carried to the south and west, to about Mostyn and Douglas ; (3) it is apparently only a few that have been carried out of the district through the North Channel. It is interesting to learn that the Fishery Board for Scotland has also commenced a similar inquiry by the distribution of floating bottles in the Scottish territorial waters. No account of their experiment has yet appeared, but it will be of some importance to compare results with them, say, at the end of the first year's work.

The Committee apply to be reappointed for one additional year, with a grant of 501., to enable them to carry on their investigations and draw up a final report.

The Zoology of the Sandwich Islands.-Fifth Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor A. NEWTON (Chairman), Dr. W. T. BLANFORD, Dr. S. J. HICKSON, Professor C. V. RILEY, Mr. O. SALVIN, Dr. P. L. SCLATER, Mr. E. A. SMITH, and Mr. D. SHARP (Secretary).

THE Committee was appointed in 1890, and has been annually reappointed. Acting jointly with that appointed by the Royal Society for the same purposes, it decided, as stated in its Report made at Oxford, that Mr. Perkins should return home from the Sandwich Islands. He accord

More probably, very much further, as during that time it would certainly be carried backwards and forwards by the tide.

ingly arrived in England last autumn, and for the next four months was engaged in overhauling the very large collections he had previously made. These proved to be of great importance, and the Committee has gratefully to acknowledge the zeal and perseverance displayed by Mr. Perkins in carrying out its wishes. As was to be expected, close examination made it evident that much still remained to be done to complete the Committee's work of exploration. From the information given by Mr. Perkins, it was clear that, unless the deficiencies be made good without loss of time, this will never be done, the extinction of many members of the still existing Fauna being not only inevitable, but immediate. The Committee, believing that it would be a matter for serious regret if the task, on which so much labour and money have already been expended, were left unfinished, resolved to send Mr. Perkins out again. With this object it applied to the Council of the Royal Society for the sum of 1007., which was granted, in order that he might start without delay, so as to take advantage of the most favourable season of the present year. Mr. Perkins reached Honolulu before the end of March last, and has since been working, chiefly in the islands of Kauai and Hawaii.

The Committee has also to report that a proposal has been received from the trustees of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu, offering, on certain conditions, to contribute liberally to the expenses of the investigation your Committee is carrying on. Briefly stated, these terms are that the trustees of the Museum in question are to have the third set of the specimens collected by Mr. Perkins. Authority to treat with this Museum was given by the Government Grant Committee of the Royal Society, and it is hoped that the British Association will also approve of this course.

The Joint Committee has also decided that the first set of the birds collected by Mr. Perkins shall be placed in the British Museum, and the second set in that of the University of Cambridge.

Since the last report attention has been directed to working out the collections and furnishing detailed accounts thereof. A report on the Orthoptera is daily expected from Herr Hofrath Brunner von Wattenwyl; Lord Walsingham has commenced the examination of the Micro-Lepidoptera, Mr. E. Meyrick that of the larger Lepidoptera. The Mollusca have been entrusted to Mr. E. R. Sykes, who is working at them with the assistance of Mr. E. A. Smith. The Neuroptera have been sent to Mr. R. McLachlan. Mr. Perkins has published a second paper on the Birds; he also, while he was in this country last winter, made considerable progress in working out the Hymenoptera. The Rev. F. O. Pickard

Cambridge has looked over the Spiders hitherto received, and estimates them at about 200 species, of which it is probable the majority may prove to be new. The extensive series of Coleoptera is being prepared, at the Cambridge University Museum, for examination.

The Committee is at present in want of funds to maintain Mr. Perkins in the islands until it receives money on account of the proposed agreement with the trustees of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. It therefore asks for reappointment, with power to avail itself of the assistance of this Museum, and for a grant of 1007.

Investigations made at the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Associa-
tion at Plymouth.-Report of the Committee, consisting of Mr. G. C.
BOURNE (Chairman), Professor E. RAY LANKESTER (Secretary),
Professor M. FOSTER, and Professor S. H. VINES.

J. On a Blood-forming Organ in the Larra of Magelona. By FLORENCE
BUCHANAN, B.Sc.

II. On the Nervous System of the Embryonic Lobster. By EDGAR J.
ALLEN, B.Sc.

III. On the Echinoderm Fauna of Plymouth. By J. C. SUMNER

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THE Committee were appointed to enable Mr. Edgar J. Allen or other zoologist to investigate the Decapod Crustacea, and Mr. J. J. Lister to work at the Foraminifera at the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association.

The Committee have received a report from Miss Florence Buchanan, B.Sc., held over from last year on account of ill-health, in addition to Mr. Edgar J. Allen's report, and that of Mr. J. C. Sumner, who occupied the table in January and February 1895.

I. On a Blood-forming Organ in the Larva of Magelona.

By FLORENCE BUCHANAN, B.Sc.

In August of 1893 the British Association kindly allowed me the use of their table at Plymouth for the purpose of studying the development of Magelona. I was unfortunately prevented from working out the material collected there in time to present my report to the last meeting; and even now what new observations I have to record concern the development of the vascular system only, and I must leave the development of the other organs, or systems of organs, to be described later by myself or some other investigator from a more extended series of stages than I at present possess.

There is a good deal of individual variation with regard to the time of the first appearance of the vascular system, as there is, indeed, with regard to that of other organs also, in the larva of Magelona. I have seen a well-developed pulsatile dorsal vesicle, the so-called 'heart,' in larvæ with only eight or nine segments, all bearing provisional chætæ, whilst in other larvæ with a good many more segments there has been no trace of such structure, nor of vascular sytem at all. The 'heart,' which is always the first part of the system to make its appearance, and the dorsal and ventral vessels after it are formed, to begin with, by the accumulation of a transparent fluid between the splanchnic layer of mesoblast and the hypoblast, beginning anteriorly, and thereby causing a pouching of the splanchnic mesoblast in front to form the walls of the 'heart,' which lies mainly in front of the hypoblastic portion of the alimentary canal and over the pharynx, and gradually extending backwards. By the time that the larva has reached the stage in which the body is divided into three regions, and sometimes before the loss of the provisional chætæ of the middle region, there is seen in the living larva at the posterior end of the dorsal vessel, or of what is going to become the dorsal vessel, and in the middle region of the body, a dark reddishbrown mass. This is seen in sections to consist of a much swollen portion of the splanchnic mesoblast in which there are many nuclei, but no distinct cell boundaries, and completely blocking up the space between it and the hypoblast. In later stages, when the splanchnic mesoblast has

closed round so as to nip off the dorsal and ventral vessels entirely from the hypoblast, this brown body is no longer to be seen; but floating in the liquid of both dorsal and ventral vessels, and also in the vessels of the tentacles, are pale pink-coloured corpuscles, which in sections are seen to have the appearance of broken-off bits of the dark body present in the earlier stage, and containing for the most part each more than one nucleus. There seems to me to be very little doubt that by the further breaking up of such multinucleate corpuscles the blood-corpuscles of the adult (which were described by Benham at the meeting of the British Association last year) would be formed. I was unfortunately not able to obtain later larval stages and to observe this breaking up going on. But I think my sections of what stages I have justify me in concluding that the peculiar dark body of the middle region of the larva is a corpuscleforming organ. I do not, however, wish to maintain that all the corpuscles of the adult are formed from this larval organ; on the contrary, to judge by sections of the adult, which Dr. Bles kindly lent me to look through whilst I was at Plymouth, I think this is at least a special bloodforming region in the dorsal vessel of the adult; but, without having intermediate stages, and a complete series of sections of the adult, I cannot say whether this region corresponds to that in which the larval organ lies. I should like to point out the resemblance which this provisional larval organ bears, both in structure and position, to what I have called the vascular ridge' in part of the dorsal vessel of Hekaterobranchus (Q.J.M.S.,' xxxi. pp. 183, 184, pl. xxii. fig. 6). Like other members of the family Spionidæ, Hekaterobranchus has no corpuscles in its blood, and the presence of an organ in the dorsal vessel so closely resembling the one in the dorsal vessel of the larval Magelona suggests, in the light of the facts I have stated above, either that it at one time did have blood-corpuscles formed by a special organ, now persisting only as a vestigial rudiment, or that an organ once having some other significance in both animals has acquired a new significance in the one (Magelona).

II. On the Nervous System of the Embryonic Lobster.
By EDGAR J. ALLEN, B.Sc.

Whilst occupying a table at the Marine Biological Association's Laboratory during June and July 1894 I was enabled to continue my observations on the nervous system of the embryonic lobster. The observations were carried on, as before, with the aid of methylen-blue.

Additional elements connecting the various ganglia of the thorax with the brain were observed, and their course followed. In the nine ganglia of which the thoracic nerve-chain is really composed, such elements have now been demonstrated in the second (with branches to first and third), the fifth (with branches to fourth and sixth), the eighth (with branches to seventh and ninth), and in the eleventh (with branches to tenth and first abdominal). In this way all the eleven ganglia of the thorax, together with the first abdominal ganglion, are put into direct communication with the brain by means of the four elements whose cells lie in the second, fifth, eighth, and eleventh ganglia.

Of elements belonging to new types which were observed the most interesting were those motor elements which, taking origin in a single cell, gave rise to two or more branches, which passed out of the central nervous system by the nerve-roots of different ganglia. For example, a

cell lying in the anterior portion of the lateral mass of ganglion cells in the eighth thoracic ganglion was seen to give off a moderately fine fibre, which divided into two branches, one branch passing immediately out of the ganglion through the anterior nerve-root, whilst the other ran forwards along the ganglionic cord. The forward branch pursued a perfectly straight course until it reached the third thoracic ganglion, where it gave off a branch passing out through the posterior root of the ganglion, and then continued to run forwards to the second thoracic ganglion, passing out through its posterior root. Hence this element, the cell of which lay in the eighth thoracic ganglion, supplied fibres to three nerve-roots belonging to different ganglia, namely, the anterior root of Thorax VIII., the posterior root of Thorax III., and the posterior-root of Thorax II. A number of additional elements were also found in the abdomen. These resemble in a general way those of the thorax, and will be described in detail in a paper which will be published in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science.'

III. On the Echinoderm Fauna of Plymouth. By J. C. SUMNER.

On receiving the nomination to the British Association Table at Plymouth, I went down in the early part of January with the intention of working at the Echinoderm fauna of the neighbourhood. Unluckily, during the greater part of the time the weather was too bad to permit of any dredging or trawling being done outside the Sound. In consequence the following list is largely compiled from specimens already in the collections at Plymouth. One unnamed specimen in a bottle turned out to be Amphiura Chiajii. It was taken two miles S. of the Breakwater, and I believe has not been recorded so far south before.