TUBULARIA INSIGNIS. 405 



HrDRANTn measuring across tlic proximal circlet of tentacles about two and a half 

 inches ; proximal tentacles twenty-eight in number. 



GONOSOME. — GoNOPnoRES oval, destitute of tentaculiform tubercles, and dis- 

 posed in simple pendulous^ racemes, which alternate with the i)roxiraal tentacles, and 

 are equal to them in length. 



Local i/^. — Spitsbergen. 



With the exception of Amalthaa Januarii, there is no known hydroid whose hydranths 

 approach in size to those of the colossal Tuhularia just described. For our knowledge of it we 

 are indebted to a paper by Boeck, but further details are much to be desired. It approaches in 

 many respects to Tubidaria indivisa, and, like that species, presents the longitudinally striated 

 condition of its stem, which indicates a channeled structure of the coenosarc. We are not 

 informed whether radiating canals exist in the walls of the gonophores. These, after the escape 

 of the AdinulcB, present a wide orifice through which the spadix projects for a considerable 

 distance. The Adinula appears to resemble very nearly that of Tuhularia indivisa. 



Tubidaria regalis was obtained on the coast of Spitsbergen, and is thus the most northern 

 hydroid whose tiophosome has been yet discovered. 



*^* 4. TuBULARiA INSIGNIS, Allnuin. 



TROPHOSOME. — Hydrocaulus simple, attaining a height of seven inches (or 

 more), gradually increasing in thickness from below upwards, until it attains a 

 diameter of one eighth of an inch ; ccenosarc longitudinally striated ; perisarc quite 

 smooth. Hydranth borne on a collar ; proximal tentacles about thirty, distal 

 tentacles more than 200 in a dense brush, formed by numerous closely superimposed 

 verticils ; length of proximal tentacles about nine tenths of an inch ; of distal about 

 three tenths. 



GONOSOME. — GoNOPHOKES barrel-shaped, with terminal aperture, destitute o 

 tentaculiform tubercles, and with four obvious parietal canals ; peduncles of gono- 

 phores in six or seven imbricated verticils, with about twenty in each verticil, not 

 pendulous, each peduncle dividing near the summit sub-dichotomously into short 

 ultimate pedicells. 



Lncalili/. — Dieppe, M. L. Rousseau. 



The characters enumerated in the specific diagnosis just given are those of a tubularian, 

 which far surpasses in size every British representative of the genus. A specimen consisting of a 



' Boeck's figure represents them as erect, an attitude which their slenderness and length 

 renders it impossible for them to as.^nrae. 



