398 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. X. 



same kind of internal structure as Ileteropora^ and consequently 

 that the former genera should be removed from the class An- 

 thozoa, to which the true corals arc supposed to belong, and 

 placed with the Polyzoa — a conclusion which had been arrived 

 at ten years before by Dr. Rominger. 



Many species of Heteropora have been described from the 

 Mesozoic and Tertiary rocks of Europe and the United States, 

 but no living representative of the genus had been discovered until 

 1879. In that year Mr. Waters described and figured a recent 

 species from Japan, under the name JI.j)elliculata^ in the Journal 

 of the Royal Microscojyical Society ; and a little later in the 

 same year, in the Journal of the Linnaan Society, Mr. Busk 

 published a diagnosis, accompanied by illustrations, of a living 

 Polyzoon from New Zealand, which he called H. Neozelanica, 

 Mr. Waters and Dr. H. A. Nicholson, however, have both ex- 

 pressed the opinion that the //. Nco7:elanica of Busk is identical 

 with the previously described H. j^clliculata. 



On the coast west of Sooke. Vancouver Island, in the Strait of 

 Juan de Fuca, Mr. James Richardson, late of the Geological 

 Survey of Canada, found a single specimen of a recent polyzoon 

 in 1874, which, in the writer's judgment, cannot be distinguished 

 by any tangible character from the Japanese and New Zealand 

 species of Ileteropora described by Messrs. Waters and Busk. 

 No thin sections of this specimens have been made to show the 

 minute structures of the interior, but the whole of the outer sur- 

 face has been carefully examined under the microscope, and camera 

 drawings of some of the most striking appearances thus presented 

 have been made. The punctured, calcareous pellicle which Mr. 

 Waters represented as closing the mouths of the interstitial 

 canals in //. jtelUculata, the character which suggested that 

 specific name, can be well seen in part of the Canadian spacimen. 

 The general shape of the Polyzoary of the latter and the micro- 

 scopical character of other portions of the surface agree perfectly 

 with Busk's figures of the corresponding parts of i/. Neozclanica. 

 In one portion of the surface of the Fuca polyzoon it was noticed 

 that the apertures of some of the larger tubes project distinctly 

 beyond the general level, a feature not specially indicated in any 

 of Messrs. Waters' or Bu.sk's illustrations, but this slight varia- 

 tion from their types can scarcely be held as indicative of a 

 specific difference from them. 



