400 BULLETIN 100, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



filament is in the living state, succulent, translucent and of a pale 

 flesh color or very light terra cotta tint. An examination of the 

 specimens (segments) does not disclose any signs of a single primary 

 zooecium; instead of which there is a row of zooecia (16 in the speci- 

 men figured), somewhat different in form from the succeeding ones, 

 from the bases of which there are numerous short filamentary processes 

 which project over the cavity that in the living state was occupied 

 by the stem, and which apparently were embedded in it and by them 

 the zoarium was attached to the stem" (Maplestone, 1910). 



In effect the base of an intact segment shows a series of long, 

 narrow, parallel zooecia, more and more curved in receding from 

 the center. The study of the proximal section shows that each 

 zooecium is divided into 4 or 5 longitudinal compartments (or tubules) 

 separated by very thin partitions. The exterior filament branches 

 therefore in a rather large number of secondary filaments which 

 penetrate into the segment and support it. Moreover we have been 

 able to observe in our very well preserved specimen that these cells 

 do not perhaps have a rimule to their aperture and therefore they do 

 not contain a polypide. However, this observation requires con- 

 firmation. The basal tubules are quite visible in the longitudinal 

 sections on our figure of the interior. Our studies of this genus had 

 been completed when Livingstone published upon it in 1924. The 

 student is referred to his work. 



Biology.— The filament which bears the segments appear to us anal- 

 ogous, according to the description of Maplestone, to the stolon of 

 the Ctenostomata. Like it, this filament ought to be formed of mod- 

 ified individuals deprived of polypides; the latter by blastogenesis, 

 engender the normal zooecia but in a very different manner because 

 the normal zooecium is not in immediate contact with the central 

 filament. The latter ramifies first into secondary filaments; many 

 secondary filaments form a calcified zooecium without polypide and 

 this latter only engenders the normal zooecium. The zoarium is 

 therefore not articulated, but stoloniferous. This distinction is very 

 important, for it implies a very different adaptation. The articulation 

 has for its object to give flexibility to the colonies with fragile zooecia. 

 The stolon has for its object to permit colonies to escape from the 

 substratum chosen by the larva. The absence of all zoarial avicularia 

 well confirms the observation that the present case is not an 

 articulation. 



The genus Parmularia being the only stoloniferous cheilostomatous 

 genus known, we are obliged to class it in a special family; the larva 

 ought to have according to resemblances observed in the Ctenostomata 

 very different characters from those of other known genera with 

 endozooecial ovicell. The special and very unusual mode of gemma- 

 tion and the anatomical modifications resulting from the curving of 

 the zooecia, confirm this classification. 



