HYDROID ZOOPHYTES. 39 



drium rameiim) was recovered from among the rocks of a 

 cavity in the bottom of the Frith of Porth^ at about one 

 hundred and fifty feet from the surface. It had vegetated 

 in such a direction that it was detached quite entire. Being 

 transferred to a capacious vessel of sea-water, I found it 

 rising seven and a half inches in height, by a stem about 

 nine lines in diameter near the root, then subdividing into 

 several massy boughs, besides many lesser branches. Num- 

 berless twigs, terminated by thousands of minute hydrse of 

 the palest carnation, clothed the extremities, wliicli were ten 

 inches apart. The root diffused itself irregularly, by a mul- 

 titude of mossy-like fibres, which might be circumscribed by 

 a circle two inches in diameter. It is to be observed, that 

 the stem and higher rigid portions consisted of irregular 

 bundles of tubes; but about two inches of the highest 

 were in verlicillate arrangement. Though composed of 

 bundles of tubes below, the absolute extremities, bearing 

 the hydrse, resolve into single tubes, each with its animal. 



" Many parasites invested this splendid specimen. Masses 

 of the pure white and deep orange Alcyonium digitatum 

 hung from the boughs ; SertidancB, Sjmn/jes, and Algcs were 

 profusely interspersed, all proving, by their obvious suc- 

 cessive generations, the great antiquity of the Eudendrhmi. 



