L82 ZOOPHYTES. 



zoophytes, though exhibiting the greatest external difference of form and 

 appearance. It consists of a long, slender, round shell or bone, invested 

 by a fleshy coating, which expands from each side into a number of lobes, 

 also fleshy, bordered by several asteroidal hydrae. 



Thus is it displayed in vigour amidst its native element the sea. But 

 when contracted, or in that state which is too often represented by authors, 

 with all the parts shrivelled up, and clinging closely together, to recognise 

 it for the real subject is impossible. 



For the most part the Virgularia is procured in portions four, five, or 

 eight inches long, with the central bone protruding from one of the extre- 

 mities, which denotes its mutilation. But these are only fragments, for 

 its natural and entire dimensions greatly exceed them. The largest I 

 have ever had extended 23 inches in length, of which the bone occupied 

 18 ; nor was this a complete specimen. It had been mutilated for a con- 

 siderable time, as another animal had established itself a parasite on the 

 portion of the bone exposed. Beyond the two extremities there is natu- 

 rally a fleshy prolongation from each of them, so that this specimen must 

 have extended at least 30 inches previous to mutilation. In greatest breadth, 

 a fine specimen expands about an inch between the opposite hydra, termi- 

 nating the extremity of the lobes. The whole is of beautiful straw colour, 

 presenting an object whose interesting appearance can be sufficiently ap- 

 preciated only by beholding the living creature in vigorous display of all 

 its parts. — Plate XLIII. fig. 1. 



The fleshy portion of the stem of the Virgularia, which environs the 

 bone, is susceptible of considerable intumescence. It is of smooth and 

 uniform surface where flattened for about a fourth part of the circuit. 

 Each side of the circuit expands into a number of oblique thin flattened 

 lobes or leaves, arranged nearly as pairs ; each of these lobes being inter- 

 nally subdivided into eight or ten cellular compartments. An asteroidal 

 hydra rises to display itself from each of these receptacles, fig. 2, a section 

 comprehending three pair of leaves ; fig. 3, the same enlarged. 



The hydra seems precisely the same in all respects as that of the Lo- 

 bularia described in the preceding paragraph. Its cylindrical body rising 

 from the margin of the leaf, dilates above into eight triangular pectinate 



