MR. GOSSE ON A NEW FORM OF CORYNOID POLYPES. 115 
the obtuse summit of Coryne Cerberus, as I have elsewhere recorded*; and confirmed 
my suggestion of the natural affinities of the form. 
The principal colony remained for many weeks under my observation, without any 
noticeable change. The terminal portion of the tube, which at first had been so dia- : 
phanous, gradually became more opake, and disfigured by the growth on it of confervoid 
threads, and by the entanglement of a multitude of minute Diatomaceæ in its surface. 
At length the Sabella spontaneously quitted its tenement: the parasites appeared at first 
unchanged and unaffected; but, strange to say, before the lapse of two days, they all 
gradually died away; as if their existence depended on the presence of their patron. 
They seemed to become feeble, attenuated, and almost motionless, before they dis- 
appeared. 
While they lived they afforded me much entertainment, as also to those scientific 
friends to whom I had opportunities of exhibiting them. When I used to see them 
surrounding the mansion of the Sabella, gazing, as it were, after him, as he retreated 
into his castle, flinging their wild arms over its entrance, and keeping watch with untiring 
vigilance until he reappeared, it seemed to require no very vivid faney to imagine them 
so many guardian demons; and the Lares of the old Roman mythology suggested for 
them a name. pr 
Bearing in mind the extraordinary eycle of phænomena that have been proved to occur 
in the reproduction of the Hydroid Polypes in general, and of the Corynidæ in particular ; 
it is highly probable that the animal, whose appearance and manners I have been 
describing, would, in the natural prolongation of its existence, have budded off some 
Medusoid forms, endowed with proper sexual functions. I detected, indeed, no trace of 
(so-called) ovarian capsules, nor any evidence of increase, except that of the gemination 
of the individual zooids from the common root-thread. This, however, by no means 
disproves the possibility, nor even the probability, of such developments, at å more 
mature stage of the polypoid condition. Had I discovered such, and were I able to follow 
out the life-history of the animal, and to show that it agrees in its reproductive phæno- 
mena with other Coryniform Polypes, it would still be an open question, —to Which 
condition—whether the Coryniform or the Medusiform—specific identity is to be assigned ; 
or, in other words, which ought to bear the nomina generica et trivialia, and to ag 
place in the System of Nature. Is the Medusa the animal, of which the hs ii " 
larva? Oris the Coryne the animal, of which the Medusa is but the detached and loco- 
motive sexual organ ? 7 
I incline to affirm the former of these two hypotheses; but yet, in accordance with 
. La h 
precedent, by which the Corynide and Campanulariade are reckoned Be de y 
of names, I may venture, provisionally at least, to register, under systematic appellations, 
the form before me, and wait for new light as to its future history. 
Genus Lar (Gosse). 
Zoophytum è familia Corynidarum, nudum, associatum sed sejunctum, erectum, 
retiformi saliens, tentaculis simplicibus filiformibus instructum. 
+ Devonshire Coast, p. 223, plate xiv. fig. 4. 
e filo radicali repente 
> 
Q 2 
