414 TUBULARIA SPECTABILIS. 



GONOSOME. — GoxopiiORES oval, in about twenty-four dense clusters, alternately 

 longer and shorter. 



Colour. — Body of hydranth carmine. 



Habitat. — Found covering the bottom of a ship in the haibour of Coquimbo. 



Localif}/. — Coquimbo, South America. 



The above diagnosis has been drawn up from a specimen preserved in spirit, and sent to me 

 by Dr. J. E. Gray, who received it from the coast of Coquimbo. Though a true Tubularia it is 

 quite distinct from our European species, as well as from those of the North American coast. 

 One of its most striking features is the great abundance of its clusters of gonophores, which are 

 more numerous than in any other species with which I am acquainted. 



In size it resembles the Tubularia larynx of our own shores, and like it has its stems 

 terminated immediately below the hydranths by the peculiar fluted collar, which is found in this 

 and other species. From Tubularia larynx, however, it is easily distinguished by its simple stems, 

 and by the profusion of its gonophore clusters. 



The common peduncles of the gonophore clusters are destitute of gonophores for a con- 

 siderable distance from the root, and these naked flexile stems must have given a pendulous 

 attitude to the clusters during life, though this attitude is not very obvious in the contracted 

 state of the preserved specimens. 



*^* 13. Tubularia spectabilis, Agassiz. 



Thamnocnidia SPECTABILIS, — Affossis, Contr. Nat. Hist. U.S., vol. iv, p. 271, pi. xxii, figs. 



1 — 20. A. Af/assiz, lUustr. Catal. N. A. Acal., 

 p. 195. 



" The description already given of the head with its proboscis, the tentacles and the bunches 

 of niedusoids [sporosacs], the stems and their mode of branching, and the horny sheath of 

 Parypha \Tubularia\ crocea, apply equally to this hydroid, with the following exceptions : — The 

 horny sheath is quite uniform and smooth as far as it covers the stem above its base, and is a 

 very little narrower below than above, but the entangled mass of the base is perhaps more dense 

 than in Paryjjha." 



Tlie, yonophores have "three or four solid, short, unshapely tentacles" [apical processes]. 

 In other respects the structure of the gonophore " is almost identical with that of Parypha 

 crocea, even to the absence of radiating and circular chymiferous vessels." — Aya^siz. 



Development of Gonosome. — Summer and autumn. 

 Habitat. — On floating timber in brackish water. — Ayassiz. 

 Locality. — Massachusetts Bay. — Ayassiz. 



