164 Records of the Indian Museum. [VOL 
is normal; it has some 40 to 60 tentacles, which are moder- 
ately or very long. The lophophore generally resembles that 
of Plumatella. The statoblasts are large (0°'4 mm. to I mm, 
long), but asa rule smaller than those of the Lophopinae. 
They resemble the free statoblasts of Plumatella in structure 
and have neither marginal processes nor terminal prolonga- 
tions. 
Apart from the synoecial jelly, the structure of the colony in 
this genus is very like that of Plumatella, but the order of branch- 
ing is not quite the same. In the younger parts each zooecium 
normally produces a single bud, but the precise stage at which this 
bud is produced differs in different species and even in different 
parts of the same colony; in A. lendenfeldi it probably does not 
appear as a rule until the mother-zooecium is well developed, 
whereas in A. indica it develops while the latter is still small. 
As a rule, in both species, it arises on the left and the right side 
respectively of alternating zooecia, so that a zig-zag stem is pro- 
duced, consisting of a linear series of zooecia pointing alternately 
in different directions. As the colony grows older a secondary 
bud is often produced on the opposite side of the mother-zoo- 
ecium to that on which the primary bud was formed. These 
secondary buds are the mother-zooecia of lateral branches that 
pursue a similar course to that of the stem from which they 
orginated, but at an acute angle to it. The figure may be further 
complicated by the production of secondary buds, and ultimately 
of secondary branches, from zcoecia of the primary branches, and 
as a matter of fact this often takes place at an early stage in the 
development of the colony. 
The result is the formation of a solid encrusting body closely 
compacted and agglutinated together by the synoecial jelly, but 
increasing in bulk mainly in one plane and without vertical 
branches. 
It sometimes happens that branches or parts of branches die 
off or are killed by injury. In such cases the synoecial jelly 
remains intact. New branches may arise in vacant masses of 
jelly by budding from isolated fragments of the polyparium and 
are thus found separated from the remainder of the colony expect 
in so far as they are united by the jelly. This fact sometimes 
gives the whole structure the false appearance of being a com- 
pound colony like that of Pectinatella. 
The genus Australella has now been found in Australia, India 
and South America. 
Key to the species of AUSTRALELLA. 
I. Synoecial jelly cartilaginous, scanty. 
Statoblasts oval, rounded at the ends .. A. tdica. 
II. Synoecial jelly soft, very copious. 
A. Statoblasts oval, subtruncate .. A. lendenfeldt. 
B. Statoblasts subcircular or polygonal A. jheringt. 
