198 



(a) Coenenchyma : (1) Colourless spiny or warty spindles mostly straight, 



but curved or S-shaped forms occur : 1-2 x 0'15 ; 

 1-0 X 0-2; 0-8 X 0-1. 

 (2) Spindles very thick in the middle but tapering 

 markedly to both ends : 8 x 2 ; 075 x 2. 



(fj) Anthocodiaj : Spiny spindles : 0-5 x 0-05 ; 0"4 x O'OS. 



(e) Tentacles : Spiny spindles : 0-2-1: x 0-025 ; 02 x 002 ; 01 x 0015. 



Locality : Andamans. 



GENUS ECHINOMURICEA, Verrill. 



The type of this genus is E. rorrinea, Verrill { = Acanthogorgia roccinea, 

 Verrill, " Proc. Essex Inst.," iv. p. 188. Plate VI. fig. 7) (and Nephthya roccinea, 

 Stimpson), and was established by Verrill in " Amer. Jour, of Sci. and Art," 2nd 

 ser. vol. xlvii. p. 285, 1869. 



Wright and Studer ("'Challenger' Eeports," vol. xxxi. p. liv.) thus 

 define the genus : Colony is simple or branched ; the stem and branches are 

 thickly beset with polyp calyces. These are short, cylindrical or conical, trun- 

 cated terminally and with horizontally disposed tentacular opercula. The 

 calyces are covered with spicules of a peculiar form, overlapping one another ; 

 these consist of long flat needles which give off several root-like processes from 

 their expanded ends. The apices of the needles project. 



Hedlund accepts this diagnosis, but adds that "the operculum at the base 

 of each tentacle is a group of two rows of more or less delicate needles converg- 

 ing. There Is no rollaret." This, he says, distinguishes Echinomurirea from 

 Paramuricea. It must, however, be noted that although this may hold in E. 

 peterseni, Hedlund, and E. coronalls, Germanos, it certainly does not obtain in 

 E. idiginosa, n. sp., E. andamanensis; n. sp., E. indica, n. sp., and E. reticulata, 

 n. sp., though in the latter to a less marked degree. Yet we have little or no 

 hesitation in placing these in the genus Echinomurirea. 



Again in the generic diagnosis quoted, Wright and Studer refer to a " hori- 

 zontally disposed tentacular operculum," but in E. uligiiiosa, n. sp., the oper- 

 culum is elevated and conical. This divergence may, however, be the result of 

 different degrees of retraction. 



Wright and Studer refer to a specimen which they place in a species 

 established by Ridley, tiz., E. indomalacrensix, but we concur with Hedlund's 

 opinion that among other things the form of the verructe would point to closer 

 affinities with E. phi/ij>pinensis. 



Hedlund thus classifies the species established up to the time of the publi- 

 cation of his memoir : — 



