HYDKOIDA. Ill 



Clavactinia gallensis, n. sp. Plate I., fig. 3. 



TuorHOSOME. Colonies an inch square, or more, having a yellowish crust spotted 

 with minute dark red spines, and with larger ridged spines of the same colour placed 

 at intervals. Hydranths opaque white with about 14 tentacles surrounding the upper 

 portion of the body. 



Gonosome. Sporosacs borne on very short-stemmed blastostyles, 5 or 6 on each, 

 almost round in shape and showing about 5 divisions. 



Locality : Growing on gastropod shells belonging to Eburna and Neritina ; 

 dredged in Galle Bay, 2 fathoms. 



There are no spiral zooids on these colonies, which have, with their spinous crusts, 

 so much the appearance of a Hydractinia. The blastostyles are very short, and the 

 sporosacs on them are in various stages of development. The Eburna shells are 

 covered with the colonies, many of them not fully grown ; these shells contained the 

 living animal at the time they were taken. On the Neritina shell the hydranths 

 and gonophores cover the crust much more fully, but the hydranths are smaller and 

 have their tentacles so contracted as to appear almost capitate. 



Family : TUBULAEIID^E. 



Tubularia gracilis, von Lendenfeld (17). 



From the general resemblance and the large number of gonophores, home on erect 

 peduncles, I am inclined to consider that the present specimens belong to this 

 Australian species, although when more material is at hand for examination, further 

 details may appear which will require their separation as a distinct form. The stems 

 are unbranched, entangled with others at their bases by their rhizomes. They are 

 smooth, like von Lendenfeld's specimens of T. gracilis, for the most part, but are 

 occasionally ringed at the base and here and there up the stem. The laigest 

 are only f of an inch in height, but as the zooids vary a good deal in general size, 

 the stems may possibly grow to the usual height of T. gracilis under favourable 

 circumstances. The hydranths are slightly smaller than those of T. gracilis, the 

 largest present being only about ^ - of an inch across the tentacles and yj>- of an inch 

 in total height. They are reddish in colour when living, and the gonophores are 

 lh eenish-yellow. The gonophores are borne on short, branched peduncles, and are 

 present in various stages .of development. The most fully developed have 4 lobes, 

 and show a division of their sides by 4 longitudinal grooves. A hydranth carries 

 about 9 peduncles with about 30 gonophores on each. 



Locality : This species, previously known only from Port Jackson, Australia, was 

 found growing on the fibre of the " coir " baskets containing experimental pearl 

 oysters suspended from a buoy in Galle Bay during June, 11)02. 



