34 Coelenterata. 



l 



at first as short rods or only slightly thorny spindles, and were distributed 

 throughout the body wall; but as soon as a certain length was reached they 

 became arranged in each interseptal fold in two longitudinal rows and en chevron, 

 an arrangement which the author regards as a purely mechanical consequence 

 of the strong contractility of the septal muscles. The young polyp is at first 

 club-like and its pedal disc moderately small, but from the disc arise 2 or 

 3 lappet-like outgrowths, which contain solenia and are to be regarded as the 

 stolon. On each of these outgrowths a secondary polyp arises. The stolons 

 fuse around the base of the primary polyp to form a continuous envelope, 

 which thus represents the basal expansion of the adult colony. The axis is 

 a secretion of the ectoderm of the pedal disc; it appears as a small mass of 

 a hyaline substance, traversed by a network of fine fibres, which form a thin 

 limiting lamella. The axis does not lie in the coslenteron ; as it grows upwards 

 it pushes the pedal disc before it. The axial epithelium, which is columnar 

 in the early stage, afterwards becomes thin and is found in the adult only with 

 difficulty. In a very early stage there are solenia round the axis, they grow 

 with the latter and envelop the axial epithelium. The stem of the Gorgonid 

 colony belongs, therefore, not to the primary polyp but to the stolons or 

 coenosarc, and colony formation in Gorgonacea is analogous to that in Pseud- 

 axonia. 



K. Kinoshitai 1 ) describes the structure of the axis of Telesto rosea from the 

 coral grounds at Tosa (Shikoku). When the colony has reached a certain size 

 there is laid down, outside the existing spicular axis, a new zone of spindle- 

 like spicules (bound together by horny substance), which develops gradually 

 from the base of the stem upwards. There may be as many as 6 of these 

 rings of spicules and intervening zones of mesoglosa in which there are no spi- 

 cules. Between the spicule layers are trabeculse dividing the mesogloea into 

 areas in each of which is a selenium running parallel to the axis. 



K. Kinoshita( 2 ) holds that the nature of the axis of Keroeides is against the 

 inclusion of this genus in the Scleraxonia, and renders it necessary to place 

 it in the Gorgonacea, and in the separate family Keroeididse, diagnosed thus 

 > colony erect, axis rigid consisting of a central cord and a cortical layer 

 composed of smooth spicules conglomerated together by a horny matrix; Axen- 

 epithel* remaining only at the tip of the branches; polyps retractile into more 

 or less well-developed calyces; spicules not scaly . The central cord of the 

 axis agrees with that of Gorgonacea. At the tip of a twig the axis lies 

 between the two terminal and opposite polyps, and ends close beneath the 

 superficial spicule layer. For a variable distance at its tip the axis is com- 

 posed of the central cord only, which is covered by the axis epithelium. 

 Around the axis are wide and narrow solenia, not regularly arranged. 



KiikenthalC) records from the coast of Northern Siberia Eunephthya 4 and 

 Gersemia 1. E. rubiformis exhibits great variation, from short Alcyonium- 

 like forms to slender, leaf-like ramified Nephthyid-like forms. 



Kiikenthal(-) gives an emended diagnosis of Anthomastus and a critical survey 

 of its 12 species. He describes 3 new sp. and the internal anatomy of one 

 of them, some of the siphonozooids of which appear to end blindly but are 

 connected to one another by wide horizontal canals. Similar canals also 

 connect the siphonozooids to the autozooids. 



Kukenthal ( 3 ) describes a collection of Alcyonarians, chiefly littoral, from Shark's 

 Bay, Western Australia. He gives a revision and emended diagnosis of Sarco- 

 phytum, and of the 28 sp. (and 7 var.) described accepts only 5 as certainly 

 valid, namely, glancum, latum, trocheliophorum, ehrenbergi and acutangulum, 







