382 SYNCORYNE EXIMIA. 



8. SyNCOUXXE EXIMIA, AUmOM. 

 Plate V. 



CoiiYNE LiSTERii, — Aldcf, Catal., p. 12. 



CoRYNE EXIMIA, — Allmdii, ill Aim. Nat. Hist, for August, 1859. Alder, Suppl. Catal., p. 3. 



Hincks, Brit. Hydr. Zooph., p. 50, pi. ix, fig. 2. 

 Syncoryne ExniiA, — AUman, in Aim. Nat. Hist, for May, 1861. 



TROPHOSOME. — Hydrocaulus much and irregularly branched, but with a 

 tendency to a unilateral disposition of the ultimate ramuli, springing from an adherent 

 stolon, and attaining a height of from two to three inches ; peuisaec for the most part 

 annulated at the origin of the branches, the annulation gradually losing itself in 

 shallow rugfc on the short ultimate ramuli. Htdbaisiths much elongated, with twenty 

 to thirty tentacles, the four distal tentacles forming a verticil. 



GONOSOME. — Planoblasts scattered upon the body of the hydranth, where they 

 are borne on rather long peduncles, which spring each from the axil of a tentacle ; 

 umbrella with the transverse and vertical diameters nearly equal, its outer surface 

 studded with scattered thread-cells ; marginal tentacles very extensile, when extended 

 moniliform with spherical clusters of thread-cells, the terminal cluster the largest ; 

 basal bulbs with a very distinct ocellus ; manubrium scarcely passing beyond the 

 middle of the umbrella cavity, and having the mouth surrounded by thread-cells. 



Colour. — Hydranths l)rip;lit pink, cocuosarc pale pink, visible through the clear straw-coloured 

 perisarc. Manubrium pale pink with bright rose-coloured base ; basal bulbs of marginal tentacles 

 rose-colour; ocellus deep carmine. 



Development of Gonosome. — -Summer. 



Habitat. — Attached to rocks, the stems of Laminaria, &c., at extreme low water springtides. 



Batliymetrical Distribution. — Laminarian zone. 



Localities. — Pirth of Forth and Shetland Seas, G. J. A. ; coasts of Northumberland and 

 Durham, Mr. Alder and Mr. Hodge ; south coast of Devonshire, Mr. Ilincks. 



Syncorijne eximia is perhaps the finest species hitherto met with of the beautiful genus to 

 which it belongs. Its large size, the bright colour of its hydranths, often thickly set with budding 

 medusse, the graceful motions of those medusa when, after freeing themselves from the tropho- 

 some, they sweep through the water in paths which the eye is never tired of following, their 

 wonderfully extensile tentacles, like long strings of pearls streaming from the bell-margin in ever 

 varying curves, — all contribute to render Syncoryne eximia one of the most singularly beautiful 

 liydroids of our coasts. It is a lover of the laminarian zone, where the hunter at low water will 

 easily recognise it by its large intricate straw-coloured tufts tinged with pink, and its terminal 

 rose-coloured hydranths. 



It is nn abundant, hydroid on the northern shores of Great Britain. 



