64 ZOOPHYTES. 



§ 2. TuBULARiA (Sertularia) Ramosa. — Plate XI. 



The preceding observations apply to those animal products resem- 

 bling plants, whereof the hydra, head, or flourish, crowning the extremity 

 of the tubular extremity of the stem sustaining it, remains permanently in 

 its place during life, because there is no lower cavity adapted for its re- 

 ception. The cylinder, though hollow, is occupied by a peculiar sub- 

 stance. It is otherwise with the subject of the present paragraph ; whence 

 observers, on becoming better acquainted with its nature, may remove it 

 from this intermediate position, to be incorporated with the Sertularise, 

 which, from the structure only, are apparently of nearer kindred. Mean- 

 time certain peculiarities of extreme interest, concomitant on the few 

 specimens falling into my possession, will perhaps atone for any deficien- 

 cies of description, classification, or nomenclature, more especially as these 

 can be readily corrected by those learned authors devoting themselves to 

 systematic arrangement. The multiplication of facts may facilitate their 

 useful labours. 



While occupied, early in June, with the Fennaiula mirabilis, or Virgu- 

 laria, as it is now denominated, I found the lower extremity of three different 

 specimens invested by the zoophyte, under discussion. Many others also 

 subjected to observation at the same time, were quite free of it. This 

 lower extremity is usually a naked bone, protruding beyond the flesh of 

 the Virgularia, or it is covered with a dark skin, being perhaps the fleshy 

 part of the lobes, which shall be afterwards described, in a contracted 

 state. 



A colony of 20 or 30 of what I judged to be the Tuhularia ramosa 

 invested the lower part of the largest of the Virgularise, radiating as it 

 were from around it. — Plate XI. fig. 1. It will be seen that they issue 

 from the circumference of the bone. 



Here the stem of the Tubularia, about an inch high, was surrounded 

 by branches in somewhat of an alternate arrangement, shortening as they 

 rose upwards ; a few were subdivided into twigs : all the extremities were 

 tubular, without any enlargement, and each was terminated by a hydra. 

 The formation is in no respect dichotomous, that is, each larger portion 

 subdividing into two lesser ones, and these undergoing a similar partition. 



