of British Hydi^oid Zoojjhytes. 355 



Callercoats in 1854, he wrote me that it was not anything he 

 was acquainted with. I have since, however, found in his Cata- 

 logue of the Zoophytes of North Durham, published in the 

 'Transactions of the Newcastle Natural History Society/ mention 

 made of a zoophyte, which is undoubtedly the same as this, and 

 the description is so characteristic that I cannot do better than 

 adopt it. " I have observed,^^ he says, " a small Tubularia which 

 invests old specimens of Murex antiquus with a dense beard -like 

 coat, and may, possibly, be a species distinct from the above 

 {T. ramosa). It is only the quarter of an inch in height, slender, 

 horny, wrinkled, slightly and irregularly branched, the branches 

 without rings at the origins : polypes white, furnished with a 

 single series of obtuse tentacula, that do not seem to exceed 

 ten in number. In this respect it agrees with T, ramosa as 

 characterized by Dr. Fleming, but differs from the specimens 

 which I have seen, and also from Ellis^s figure of it, in which 

 the tentacula are much more numerous.^^ The incrusting base, 

 which Dr. Johnston does not appear to have examined, forbids 

 our considering it to be the young of Eudendrium ramosum. 

 The basal ramifications are corneous and more solid than the 

 ascending stems, rather broad, flat and undulating in outline, 

 forming a dense network, the spaces between the larger reti- 

 culations being nearly filled up with smaller ones, and the 

 whole, in old specimens, appear to be united by a membrane. 

 The number of tentacles is not very constant, varying with age, 

 and occasionally reaching sixteen, but ten is the more usual 

 number. The mouth is conical when at rest, but varies much 

 in form, sometimes expanding to a flat disk, with a wide aper- 

 ture, similar to what is occasionally seen in Hydr actinia echinata, 

 to the polype of which this bears a strong resemblance. 



I have lately met with specimens, apparently of this species, 

 more branched than the form above described, and showing at 

 the top of the tube, a cup-like expansion, similar to what is repre- 

 sented by Van Beneden in his E. ramosum : the cup, though 

 continuous with the tube, is more membranous and soon falls 

 off. The species may therefore possibly be the same with that 

 so well described by Van Beneden, but is not the T. ramosa of 

 Linnaeus, of which Ellis^s figures must be taken to represent the 

 type. 



Eudendrium capillare, n. sp. PL XII. figs. 9-12. 



Polj/panj minute, very slender, thread-like, a little branched, 

 transparent, pale horn-coloured, smooth, excepting two or 

 three faint rings near the origin of each branch. Polypes ter- 

 minal on the upper branches, vase- or pear-shaped, with a 

 single row of eighteen or twenty long, slender tentacles : re- 



23* 



