FROM RHODESIA, LOPHOPODELLA THOMASI. 51 



asynietric in shape, and is made up of two horizontal strata, 

 each consisting of a single layer of hollow prismatic cells arranged 

 like the two layers of cells of a honeycomb. The polygonal air 

 cells are largest at the periphery, and become gradually smaller 

 towards the centre. In mature statoblasts the cells cover the 

 central capsule completely on the upper or convex side, whilst 

 they leave a small bare central space on the concave side. The 

 size of the statoblast of Lophopodella thoinasi is 857 //, long by 

 642 fx broad ; the spines attain a length of 75 /x, but of course 

 the exact shape and size of the whole statoblast are subject to 

 some variation. 



The only Polyzoon having statoblasts approaching the characters 

 above described is the one found in 1859 by Mr. H. J. Carter (4) 

 in Bombay, and figured by him in Ann. Mag. Xat. Hist., 1859, 

 ser. 3, vol. iii., p. 341. The statoblast (Fig. 6) is a broad oval in 

 shape, with fourteen short spines at each end, and each of these 

 is provided with six curled hooklets round its edge (Fig. 6). Mr. 

 Carter considered his animal to be a Lophopus, though probably 

 different from the European L. crystallinus, but he gave it no 

 name. Later, in 1866, Hyatt (7) joined this animal to Leidy's 

 genus Pectinatella, and called it P. carteri, for insufficient reasons, 

 it seems to me, as I shall show presently. The statoblasts of 

 this same species have in later years (1890) been found by 

 Dr. Stuhlmann in Ugogo, not far from the Victoria Nyanza, 

 in German East Africa, as reported in a paper by Dr. Meissner 

 (24), showing that the species must have a wide distribution. 



Reverting to my description of Lophopodella thomasi, Mr. 

 Thomas, its discoverer, informs me in a second letter that the 

 only colony he found was attached to the upper surface of a 

 rotten stick, floating in a pool of still water, being an overflow 

 of a small Khodesian stream. He remarks that the colony 

 was exposed to the full sunshine, and not in a dark and shady 

 place, where he had expected to find Polyzoa. The zoarium (or 

 coenoecium of Allman) — that is, the whole colony stock — consisted 

 of an oval patch of stiff gelatinous hyaline substance (Figs. 1 

 and 2), about 2| in. long by 1^ in. broad, and about g in. thick, 

 with branching tubular channels radiating from the centre, which 

 were tenanted by numerous polypides. The polypides protruded 

 all round the edge and on the surface of the gelatinous ectocyst, 

 leaving, however, a central oval space quite free of them. They 



