GONOTHYll^EA GRACILIS. 183 



stones (T. H.) : on stones between tide-marks, at Culler- 

 coats (J. A.) : Cramoncl Island, Firth of Forth, on Fucus 

 vesiculosus (G. J. A.) : Shetland (A. M. N.): Carrickfergus, 

 on weed and wood close to low-water mark ; Moukstown, 

 near Cork, on the pier (Wy ville Thomson) . 



[Coast of Belgium (Van Beneden) : Sweden (Loven).] 



2. G. GRACILIS, Sars. 



LAOMEDEA GRACILIS, Sars, Beretning om en Zoolog.-Eeise i Lofoteii og Fiu- 

 marken, 18; Middelhavet's Littoral-Faun. 51, pi. ii. figs. 1-4. 

 GONOTIIYK.EA GRACius, Allman, Ann. N. H. for May 18(34. 



Plate XXXVI. fig. 1. 



STEM very slender, straight, giving off branches sparingly 

 and at irregular intervals, ringed at the top and bottom 

 and above the origin of the branches, which resemble 

 the primary stock, and are frequently in their turn 

 branched; HYDROTHEC.E much elongated, campanulate, 

 slender, the margin with about 12 long, pointed denticles ; 

 GONOTHEC/E subcylindricttl, smooth, the upper extremity 

 truncate, tapering off below, attached by a ringed peduncle 

 (5 or 6 rings) , and borne on the stems and creeping stolon. 



THE branching of this species is peculiar. In the speci- 

 mens that I have examined, the primary stem bears a 

 single shoot, which has the appearance of growing upon it 

 rather than out of it, and this in its turn bears another 

 precisely similar to itself. The branching is carried much 

 further in well-grown examples, as may be seen in Sars's 

 figure. Sometimes the branches are separated by consider- 

 able intervals; sometimes two spring from opposite points 

 on the stem. 



There are two rings immediately below the calycle, and 

 at the base of both main stem and branches ; and above 

 the origin of the latter there is an animlatcd space. 



