DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES. 



Family S A v a g liid m, h. n. (Geeardid j&, Verrill). 



Genus Savaglia, Nardo. 



Gorgonia (pars), Donati, Lamarck, &c. 



Savaglia, Nardo, 1843, Atti 5 Congresso d. sc. ital. in Lucca. 



Ltiopathes (pars), Gray, Haime, Milne-Edwards, &c. 



Antipathes (pars), Lamarck. 



Gerardia, Lacaze Duthiers, 1864, Ann. Sci. Nat. (Zool.), ser. 5, t. ii. p. 169. 



Parasitic Zoantharia, living mostly on the stems of Muriteidse and other Gorgonidae, 

 around which they secrete a black chitinous covering. On this account the mode of 

 branching is not characteristic of the Savaglia, but of the species on which it is parasitic. 

 In old specimens, where the chitinous stems extend beyond the Gorgon id base, the growth 

 becomes bushy. Sclerenchyma black, and covered with crateriform papillae. Polyps 

 cylindrical, having twenty-four tentacles and mesenteries ; the tentacles are capable of 

 retraction, in which case the whole polyp assumes a nipple or wart-like appearance. The 

 ccenenchyma contains a series of canals bringing the whole of the blastozooids of a colony 

 into communication through the bases of the interseptal chambers. 



Lacaze Duthiers was the first to show the true relations of this form, and its difference 

 from the typical Antipathidae. Nardo, in 1843, gave the generic name Savaglia to the 

 species described as La Savaglia by Donati in 1765, which he says is identical with 

 Leiopathes lamarcki, Haime; in this case his name has priority over that of Gerardia, 

 instituted by Lacaze Duthiers in 1864. This I gather from a more recent paper; I have 

 not seen the original, and do not know if Nardo gave the species a specific, as well as a 

 generic, name ; there is no mention of one in his recent publication. I have, therefore, 

 retained the specific name of Haime. Although it seems highly probable that Nardo's 

 Savaglia is the same as Gerardia, Lacaze Duthiers, his description of the polyp does not 

 agree with Lacaze Duthiers' observations on living specimens. Nardo states that the 

 polyp has only fourteen tentacles, whereas the species in question has twenty-four. 



