ALCYONIDyE : ALCYONIUM. 1 77 



acid, a strong effervescence immediately takes place, and spicula are 

 no longer discernible. 



The ova are placed in the polype-tubes ; they are white at first, 

 but ultimately become of a scarlet colour, opake, globular, and about 

 the size of a grain of sand. Each ovum is filled with a mass of ex- 

 tremely minute pellucid granules, and is ultimately discharged 

 through the mouth. They seem to be produced in spring and sum- 

 mer, for in June and July, I have seen many specimens with not 

 more than three or five polypes developed, which were as large and 

 perfect as the polypes of the oldest specimens. 



Dr. Fleming is of opinion, that the Alcyonium lobatum of La- 

 mouroux, whose figure I have quoted without any mark of doubt, is 

 a perfectly distinct species, because its tentacula " are sub-cylindri- 

 cal, rounded at the extremity, and covered above and on the margin 

 with blunt tubercles ;" whereas of the British Alcyonium " the ten- 

 tacula in Ellis's figures (and, having compared these with nature, we 

 can pronounce on their accuracy,) are pinnate and pointed." But of 

 these figures of Ellis's, it may be observed, that the one he has given 

 in his essay on Corallines* is very unlike the figure of the same parts 

 in his Nat. Hist, of Zooj^hytes ; and I must acknowledge that neither 

 of them correspond with what I have myself seen. When a speci- 

 men of Alcyonium digitatum is placed in a vessel of sea-water, the 

 polypes protrude themselves amazingly, and extend their tentacula, 

 which are thick, obtuse, grooved along the centre, and not longer 

 than the diameter of the oral disk, being in fact very like what they 

 are represented to be by Lamouroux ; but when these organs are 

 removed and slightly pressed between plates of glass, they become so 

 much elongated that I can readily believe they may, when the ani- 

 mal is active and in its native site, assume the shape and appearance 

 of Ellis's latter figure. And I am thus drawn to the conclusion 

 that the differences in the different figures will not justify the esta- 

 blishment of distinct species, but are to be attributed to the animal 

 being in different states when observed, — a conclusion which a writer 

 in the Encyclop. Method. Supp. p. 497, has also come to. "Les 

 figures donnees par Ellis, Spix, et Lamouroux ne se ressemblent 

 guere ; je pense neammoins que cette difference ne peut etre rap- 

 portee k aucune inexactitude, mais depend de I'etat du polype ii 

 I'instant ou il a ete dessine." 



* This figure, it appears, was taken from specimens which had been immersed in 

 spirits. Introd. to Corall. p. xii. 



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