52 C. F. ROUSSELET ON A NEW FRESH-WATER POLYZOON 



are quite decayed in the preserved zoarium, but Mr. Thomas 

 says that they had a horse-shoe shaped lophophore and an 

 epistome, and the internal arrangement conformed, no doubt, to 

 that obtaining in Lophopus, Cristatella, and Plumatella, in all 

 of which there is practically no difference in this respect. 



At first I felt uncertain whether to place this new species 

 in the genus Lophopus or Pectinatella, but after a careful study 

 of all the ascertained characters I have come to the conclusion 

 that it must be placed in a new genus, to which I have given the 

 name Lophopodella, with Lophopus as its nearest ally. 



It cannot belong to Pectincttella, as P. magnified, the type of 

 this genus, first discovered by Professor Leidy in America, and 

 since found also in Germany, near Hamburg and Berlin, forms 

 very large agglomerated rounded masses, with a gelatinous 

 ectocyst often several inches thick, on the surface of which the 

 animals form closely-set irregular rosette-shaped colonies, with 

 horizontal tubes. The mass may attain the size of a man's head 

 on submerged timber, but has never yet been found on green 

 water-plants. The statoblasts of this species (Fig. 9) are altogether 

 different, being circular, resembling those of Cristatella mucedo, 

 with a ring of twelve to twenty long hooked spines, projecting 

 from the outer edge of the annulus. 



The statoblasts of Lophopodella thomasi have, in general shape 

 and character, a much greater resemblance to those of Lophopus 

 crystal! inns ; but as one of the generic characters of Lophojms 

 is, " statoblasts without spines,'*' it is not possible to include 

 this new species in this genus. 



I have mentioned above that the Polyzoon which Mr. Carter 

 discovered near Bombay in 1859, and which was named Pecti- 

 natella carteri by Hyatt (7), has a statoblast (Fig. 6) resembling 

 that of the new species, with fourteen short hooked spines at each 

 end. The following is an extract of Mr. Carter's (4) remarks 

 on his animal (loc. cit., p. 341) : " The Lophopus is essentially 

 L. crystallinus, but with a different form of statoblast, so that 

 it is probably a new species ; but this I leave to others who are 

 acquainted with the fresh- water Polyzoa better than myself to 

 determine, merely observing that, should it be considered a new 

 species, the form of the statoblast will afford the chief distin- 

 guishing character. I have not, however, been able to trace the 

 gelatinous envelope, which Professor Allman calls the ectocyst,. 



