Liverpool Marine Biological Committee's Memoirs

Abstract

THE editor—Prof. Herdman—is to be congratulated on adding these two useful memoirs to his well-known series. Miss Isgrove has given a clearly written account of a common cephalopod, for which she prefers to retain the well-known Lamarckian name rather than to adopt the name Moschites, which is its correct designation, according to the strict rules of nomenclature. In the first part of the volume interesting observations are recorded on the habits and food of this octopod, and on the conditions under which it has been found in the neighbourhood of Plymouth and Port Erin. Attention is directed to the great preponderance in number of the females, the relative proportion of the sexes of captured specimens being about fifty females to one male. In the following sections of the book the author gives an account of the external features and internal structure of the animal, considering each system of organs in turn. The morphology of the funnel, which is one of the most characteristic organs of the Cephalopoda, is worthy of more extended reference; the sections which deal with the foot and funnel contain no allusion, to the homology of the latter with the epipodium of gastropods; this homology is merely parenthetically mentioned, fifty pages later, under the description of the pedal ganglia. The alimentary canal, the circulatory and excretory systems, the nervous and reproductive organs, and the spawning are carefully described, the account of the structure of the gills and the anatomy of the nervous system being worthy of special, mention. In the section on the structure of the retina, the author speaks of a nerve fibre instead of a neurofibril, running along the axis of each retinal cell. The memoir is well illustrated by means of ten lithographic plates containing above eighty carefully drawn figures.

Liverpool Marine Biological Committee's Memoirs.

XVIII., Eledone. By Annie Isgrove. Pp. viii + 105; 10 plates. Price 4s. 6d. net. XIX., Polychæt Larvæ. By F. H. Gravely. Pp. viii + 79; 4 plates. Price 2s. 6d. net. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1909.)