AMPHITRITE. 251 
It is difficult to offer any intelligible description of this product, 
farther than in saying it consists of a congeries of innumerable slender 
filaments, united in irregular bundles, or fasciculi, forming altogether 
something like filigree work. The mass is penetrated by numerous deep 
cavities, of indeterminate size and form. The fasciculi are so disposed 
that the orifices of all the tubes are directed outwards, and many clusters 
of them advance beyond the circumference or outline of the product. 
A specimen resembled a quantity of the most luxuriant moss, which 
might have been covered by a hollow spherical segment, above three 
inches in diameter and two and a half in depth. Another specimen was 
infinitely larger, in general form an ellipsoid, above seven inches long, 
six broad, and four thick. The whole bounded by curves :’ there were 
no angles. Cavities of all different dimensions penetrated this substance. 
The surface, especially the circumference, universally in obtuse promi- 
nences, so that the specimen resembled a piece of rich carving. Here 
the myriads of tubes exceeded calculation. 
The specimen represented Plate XXXIV. fig. 1. was nearly four 
inches high, above three broad, and two inches thick. It seemed to 
have been formed from the smaller portion or root upwards, and it was 
of the same irregularity as any of the others. 
The tubes are always very slender and intricately interwoven : none 
have exceeded seven lines in length at most, and some are as slender as 
a coarse horse hair. 
The animals display themselves in great numbers from the orifices 
of the tubes ; but they seem delicate, as many fall from their site like 
the animals of certain Ascidian Zoophytes. Then they are seen to be of 
unequal size, the body of some being quite as slender as a horse hair, to 
which the smaller tubes have been already compared. 
None have survived above fifteen days. The whole product is 
dingy white ; the animal grey. It is less symmetrical than the Am- 
phitrite. 
This substance occurs in deep water. 
