56 Records of the Indian Museum. | EMOEENE 
Genus PECTINATELLA, Leidy. 
The structure of the individual zoarium of this genus agrees 
closely with that found in Lophopodella, but in fully mature colonies 
a large number of zoaria secrete a common investment or basal | 
membrane of a gelatinous nature, so that compound colonies, often 
of gigantic size, are produced. The statoblast is entirely surrounded 
by chitinous processes, each of which bears at its extremity a pair 
or a small bunch of hooks. 
Three species of Pectinatella can be distinguished, P. magnifica 
from N. America and the continent of Europe, P. gelatinosa 
from Japan, and P. burmanica from Bengal and Lower Burma. 
They may be distinguished as follows :— 
I. Statoblast circular, surrounded by processes 
which are much longer than the hooks at 
their tips . P. magnifica. 
II. Statoblast somewhat irregular j in alings but 
nearly circular ; the processes not or barely 
longer than the hooks = .. P. burmanica- 
III. Statoblast subquadrate ; processes as in IT P. gelatinosa. 
Pectinatella burmamca, Annandale. 
Pectinatella burmanica, Annandale, Rec. Ind. Mus., vol. i, p. 174 
(1908). | 
Zoarva circular or oval, sometimes constricted in the middle 
owing to approaching division, of large size, embedded in large 
numbers in a greenish jelly of considerable thickness. the com- 
pound celonies often measuring a yard or more in length and several 
inches in diameter. 
Polypides large, the free part measuring when fully protruded 
about 5 mm. Tentacles numbering about 90, slender, moderately 
long, tuberculate ; the velum at their base narrow, never strongly 
festooned. 
Statoblast almost circular but invariably a little irregular in 
outline, measuring about 1°75 mm. in diameter, provided with a 
complete ring of very short chitinous projections each of which 
bears a pair of hooks at the tip. ‘The hooks normally bend back- 
wards in a wide arc and nearly touch the edge of the statoblast ; 
sometimes they are distorted or abortive. 
Young zoaria resemble those of Lophopodella carter: both in 
general structure and in histology but may be distinguished, even 
before the secretion of the common jelly, by the large size of the 
polypides and the green colour of the syncecium. 
I described P. buymanica from a statoblast found in March ina 
lake at Kawkareik in Lower Burma, but later in the year (October) 
discovered mature colonies growing in great abundance in the Sur 
Lake near Puri in Orissa. They grew on the stems of rushes, which 
they completely encased. Both larvee and statoblasts were being 
given out in lerge numbers. 
