Verhandlungen der deutschen zoologischen Gesellschaft, for 1904

Abstract

THIS valuable publication contains the papers read at the twenty-fourth annual meeting of the society, held at Tubingen on May 24–26, 1904. The congress was opened by an address from Prof. Spengel, in which the society was congratulated on the good work it continued to produce, and especially on recent investigations on the structure of the Protozoa and on the relations of the nucleus to the general mass of protoplasm. To Prof. Blochmann was assigned the pleasant task of welcoming the society to Tübingen. The published papers are sixteen in number, in addition to which were numerous exhibits and demonstrations. Most of the former are of an extremely technical character, and to a large extent interesting chiefly to specialists. Among them we may refer to Prof. A. Brauer's account of recent investigations into the structure of the light-organs of the bony fishes, more especially of the deep-sea forms, in which the question of the relation of these structures to the lateral line system is discussed at considerable length. Dr. von Buttel-Reepen's article on the mode in which the larvæ of the honey-bee are made to assume a particular sex is also one of considerable importance. In the course of a discussion on the zoological system as commonly taught, Prof. H. E. Ziegler emphasises the view that the rhizopod and flagellate animalcules, together with the Sporozoa, form an allied assemblage, while the ciliated animalcules, both as regards the nature of the nucleus and the mode of reproduction, are altogether different. In a fourth important communication Dr. Bresslau amplifies and illustrates his discovery that the marsupium of the marsupials, in place of being a simple organ, is really formed by the amalgamation of a number of small pouches. These pouchlets, which at first form solid ring-like growths of the epidermis, soon begin to degenerate, and are merged in the wall of the marsupium.

Verhandlungen der deutschen zoologischen Gesellschaft, for 1904.

Pp. 252; illustrated. (Leipzig: Engelmann.) Price 11s. net.