34 Bulletin Vanderhilt Marine Museum, Vol. VII 



ance, created by the close grouping of the rounded tentacle-tips, 

 (See pi. 4.). More frequently these small tentacles are sparsely 

 distributed with much of the surface of the hydranth body visible. 

 In a great many instances there arise from the identical hydro- 

 phore one, two or three globular or ovoidal shaped sporosacs ; each 

 of these is attached proximally by a thread, these threads con- 

 verging and forming the attachment with the lumen of the hydro- 

 phore-like stem. None of the several hundred hydranths examined 

 showed any indication of being capable of retraction within the 

 hydrophore-like stem. The hypostome was found in varying de- 

 grees of extensibility and dilation ; in some instances resembling 

 a mere puckered distal end with a small aperture, in others a pair 

 of lips surrounding a slit-like aperture, while in a few examples, 

 completely dilated, the proboscis resembles distally a concave 

 saucer-like form united proximally by a narrowed neck to the body, 

 the whole having a vase-like profile. 



Gonosome : There are a few isolated gonophores present. Each 

 of these is attached singly by a short peduncle to a primary lateral 

 branch, a short distance below the distal end of a joint and adnate 

 to the base of a smaller branch which forms the hydrophore, 

 giving rise to a cluster of the numerous ovoidal sporosacs. These 

 isolated gonophores are small, slender, narrowly ovoidal, proxi- 

 mally tapered and distally rounded, canary-yellow, with a shining 

 surface, about 1 millimeter long with a maximum width diameter 

 t)f about 0.4 millimeters. 



The ovoidal sporosacs, which in the present colony are more 

 numerous than the developed hydranths, arise in clusters of two, 

 three, four, or much more rarely, six to eight, globular-ovoidal 

 bodies, usually in various sizes and stages of development, each 

 attached proximally by a filament, these threads forming a fascicle 

 that extends within the lumen of the hydrophore. Not infre- 

 quently the degenerated tentacles of a hydranth occur at the base 

 of such a cluster of sporosacs. 



