118 Mr. A. H. Hassall on the genus Eclimocormm 



does not render the rejection either of the genus, right or neces- 

 sary, or of the appellation which I have bestowed upon it, for 

 abundant gi'ounds may be derived from an examination of the 

 remarkable polypidom itself to justify and demand its separation 

 from the genus Alcyonidium. 



By Mr. Forbes's remark, that " each Coryne is an independent 

 animal, capable of detachment mthout injury,'^ I understand that 

 it will live when thus separated. This fact is by no means con- 

 clusive of the point at issue, for the Hydra will bear any degree 

 of mutilation and injmy without destruction of its vital powers. 

 Mr. Forbes not only rejects the idea of any organic union be- 

 tween the polype and polypidom, but hardly seems to allow that 

 the former shows any preference for the latter, observing, that 

 '' fi'om the excellent holding afforded by the polypidom, it per- 

 haps prefers such a residence.'^ The doubt implied by the word 

 perhaps is certainly unnecessary, for whatever difference of opi- 

 nion there may be relative to structural connexion between the 

 two, there can be none whatever but that the polype exhibits a 

 remarkable preference for the polypidom of the Echinocorium. 

 The zoophyte which I regard as the animal of the Echinocorium^ 

 Mr. Forbes considers to be a Coryne, and says that it is " a com- 

 mon deep-sea form of that genus." Common as the species is 

 stated to be, it had neither been described nor figured by British 

 actinologists up to the period of the publication of a paper by me 

 on Zoophytes in the ^ Annals^ for July 1841. One other point 

 still remains to be noticed in connexion with the Echinocorium. 

 I cannot of course doubt but that Mr. Forbes has met with a 

 Coryne distinct from any perfectly formed polypidom. This Co- 

 ryne might, however, either have been of a different species from 

 the animal of E. clavigerum, or, if identical with it, it is possible 

 that the polype might in some cases exist either in the entire 

 absence of the polypidom, or that this might have been in some 

 degree formed, although it had escaped the notice of Mr. Forbes, 

 who, while he disallows my view of Echinocorium, does not offer 

 any exposition of its real nature ; that is, he leaves it wrapt up in 

 the obscurity in which it has been so long involved, and from 

 which I have endeavoured to rescue it. 



In referring to my papers on the Phosphorescence of Zoophytes, 

 and to that by the Rev. D. Landsborough, Mr. Forbes observes, 

 *' the general fact" of the phosphorescence of zoophytes ^^ has 

 long been known to British naturalists." This statement is re- 

 markable. If so, how comes it that no general reference is made 

 to a fact so generally known according to Mr. Forbes, and one, 

 moreover, of the highest interest, in Dr. Johnston^ s excellent 

 ' History of the British Zoophytes t' And then adds Mr. Forbes, 

 in continuation of the same paragraph, '^ although but little had 



