880 Dv Grant on the Virgnlarm mirahilis 



Art. XXIV. — Notice regarding the Structure and Mode 

 of Generation of the Virgularia mirabilis and Pennatula 

 phosphorea. By Robert i^. Grant, M. D. F. R. S. E. 

 F. L. S. Professor of Zoology in the University of London. 

 Communicated by the Author. 



Several specimens of the Virgularia mirabilis^ Lam. and 

 Pennatida phosphorea, lately taken in the Frith of Forth, and 

 brought to me alive in sea-water, afforded me a favourable op- 

 portunity of observing some of the living phenomena of these 

 singular animals. Notwithstanding the excellent observations of 

 Bohadsch, Ellis, Pallas, and Muller, on the structure and habits 

 of Pennatulae, there is still much uncertainty respecting the 

 nature of these anomalous zoophytes, and the most contradic- 

 tory statements are met with in authors respecting their loco- 

 motive powers. As they exhibit no point of attachment by 

 which they can adhere, like almost every other zoophyte, to 

 solid substances at the bottom of the sea, no doubt is enter- 

 tained among naturalists that they float freely to and fro in 

 the deep, and Lamarck has instituted a new order of zoo- 

 phytes ( Polypi natantes ),fovX\\eYece^iiox\o^ ?>e\er\ generawhich 

 appear to exist in this unconnected state. Many naturalists, 

 however, have even maintained that they swim through the 

 ocean by their own spontaneous movements, effected either by 

 th? waving up and down of the lateral expansions of the ani- 

 mal, which was supposed by Pallas (El. Zooph. p. 369,) and 

 by Ellis (Phil. Trans, liii. 421 ,) or by the synchronous pul- 

 sations of the tentacula of all the polypi ; and Cuvier (An. 

 Comp, iv. 147.) supposes that the polypi are enabled to keep 

 time, in rowing the mass through the deep, by their being 

 all actuated by one volition. Cuvier expresses the same opi- 

 nion in his Regne Animal, torn. iv. p, 83. A more singular 

 and beautiful spectacle could scarcely be conceived, than that 

 of a deep purple Pennatula phosphorea, with all its delicate 

 transparent polypi expanded and emitting their usual brilliant 

 phosphorescent light, sailing through the still and dark abyss 

 by the regular and synchronous pulsations of the minute frin- 

 ged arms of the whole polypi. But some authors, as Lamarck, 



