VESICULARIAD.E : BEANIA. 373 



less and pellucid, tubular, unjointed, and horny ; and in general 

 they are slightly swollen at the origins of the cells. These appear to 

 be rather seated on the tube than a development of it, though it is 

 probable that there is a direct and free communication between them. 

 The cells are scattered and always single, half a line in height, ses- 

 sile, ovate, bulging below, horny, vesicular, slightly compressed, 

 smooth, with a double keel down one side; and each keel is armed 

 with from five to seven spinous teeth, which are placed sometimes 

 nearly opposite, and in other instances alternately (Fig. 70). The 

 aperture is quadrangular, terminal and wide, half closed with a thin 

 membrane, and furnished at each angle with a spinous denticle. 



Though the polypes are unknown, yet there can be little hesita- 

 tion, from the structure of the polypidom, in foretelling their affinity 

 to those of the family Vesiculariadse. 



26. Valkeria,* Fleming. 



Character. — Poh/pidoms confervoid, Jistular, membranous 

 and variously hranched : cells clustered, ovate with a narroio 

 base : " Poh/pes with eight regularly ciliated tentacula : " 7io 



gizzard. 



Ohs. The animal of Valkeria differs from that of Vesicularia and 

 Bowerbankia, " in the entire absence of the manducatory organ ; a 

 diiference which it is of great importance to observe with reference 

 to a natural arrangement of the class." Farre, 



* "This genus is dedicated to the late Dr. Walker, Professor of Natural History in 

 the University of Edinburgh, a laborious and an accomplished naturalist." — " The 

 present compliment to his name may be deemed insignificant. Perhaps it is so ; but 

 I have been led to pay it, from having had an oj)portimity of judging of his intimate 

 acquaintance with the tribe of Zoophytes to which this group belongs, by inspecting a 

 collection of specimens of various species of Sertularise, which he had collected on the 

 Scottish shores, and aiTangcd and named. These have exhibited numerous proofs of 

 his zeal, his knowledge, and his sagacity." Fleming. Sir J. E. Smith characterises 

 him as " a most amiable, worthy, and ingenious man." Sir James visited Moffat in 

 the autumn of 1782, of which parish Dr. W, was the minister. " I spent that day," 

 he says, " and the next, very happilj^ with the Doctor ; he is a very agreeable man : 

 the life and soul of Moffat ; his loss will be equally felt by the gay, the industrious, 

 and the unhappy," — alluding to his approaching removal or translation to Collington, 

 near Edinburgh. (In 1844 I visited Moffat, and, to my chagrin, I found not one 

 inhabitant who remembered Dr. Walker.) His posthumous " Essays on Natural 

 History," Edin. 1812, 8vo. is an interesting volume, which I have had occasion to 

 regret was not more noticed in our Faunas and Floras. 



