220 Mr. P. H. Gosse on a new British Zoophyte. 



epidermis is thick and coriaceous, roughened externally, the pro- 

 jections having a slight tendency to longitudinal arrangement, 

 imparting a subpolygonal form to the body, which however is 

 very indistinct : its colour is yellowish-brown, tinged in parts 

 with rufous, and slightly translucent, so that the scarlet hue of 

 the stomach shines through it, when the animal is contracted. 



Anterior column cylindrical or slightly barrel-shaped ; fluted ; 

 pellucid, almost colourless; each fluting defined by a slender 

 white line, and marked with an oblong-linear spot of opake 

 cream-white near its base: stomach visible through the inte« 

 ^uments like a thick scarlet axis. ; yd ea^i'^^ 



Oral disk small ; a star of cream-white rays on a translucent 

 ground, surrounded by twenty-eight short, subfusiform, pointed, 

 pellucid, carneous tentacles : mouth scarlet, on a low conical 

 papilla. ' Tentacles slightly ringed with alternate bands of sub- 

 opake and pellucid carnation ; they are arranged in three indi- 

 stinct circles, those of the innermost circle thickest, graduating 

 outwards. 



Posterior extremity, when extruded, a somewhat inflated 

 bladder, membranous, delicately pellucid, carneous, with the 

 pale septa distinctly visible. The extremity is imperforate ; it 

 does not form a defined sucking-disk, but its surface is capable 

 of adhering with considerable force to extraneous bodies (as a 

 plate of glass for example), on pressure, thus forming a tem- 

 porary disk. When this bulb is extruded, the epidermis is 

 forced upward, and lies in great tucks or folds around the body, 

 like a loose stocking (see fig. 4). At other times it is quite 

 covered by the epidermis, which then appears continuous and 

 imperforate (see fig. 3). 



In the specimen described, the anterior column was attached 

 to the epidermis, not at the extremity of the latter, but a little 

 within its periphery, which, when the column was protruded, rose 

 in irregular, overlapping, and somewhat everted points around 

 its base (see figs. 2 & 3). In the process of contraction, the 

 retiring column carried wdth it the epidermis, causing this to 

 invert itself to a considerable extent. After a time, however (a 

 week or more), I observed that the column, in retreating, ceased 

 to invert the epidermis, simply descending into it as into a 

 tube, the everted points of which remained exactly as they were 

 when the animal was protruded. Hence I presume that there is 

 no organic connexion between what is called the epidermis and 

 the animal, but that the former is a cutaneous secretion thrown 

 off, and inhabited as a tube ; like the investiture of Edwardsia 

 vestita. In this case the attachment of the mouth of the tube 

 to the column observed before, was probably a voluntary and 

 temporary adhesion produced by the s'lctorial property of the 



