186 THE ATLANTIC. [chap, i v. 



lesia huxifolia. The Smilacese are, however, still well repre- 

 sented by the beautiful and delicately perfumed " almond-flow- 

 er " of the settlers, CalUxene marginata. 



The weather while we were at the Falklands was generally 

 cold and boisterous, and boat -work was consequently uncom- 

 fortable, and frequently impracticable, except in the shallow 

 water within the harbor. We had, however, two or three days' 

 dredging in the pinnace, and made a pretty fair account of the 

 submarine inhabitants of our immediate neighborhood. Mac- 

 rocystis pyrifera, the huge tangle of the Southern Seas, is 

 very abundant in Stanley Harbor, anchored in about ten fath- 

 oms, the long fronds stretching for many yards along the sur- 

 face, and swaying to and fro with the tide. Adhering to the 

 fronds of Ilacrocystis there were great numbers of an elegant 

 little cucumber -shaped sea-sing {Oladodactyla crocea, Lesson, 

 sp.), from 80 to 100 mm. in length by 30 mm. in width at the 

 widest part, and of a bright saffron-yellow color. The mouth 

 and excretory opening are terminal ; ten long, delicate, branch- 

 ed oral tentacles, more resembling in form and attitude those 

 of Oonus than those of the typical Oucumarice, surround the 

 mouth : the perisom is thin and semi-transparent, and the mus- 

 cular bands, the radial vessels, and even the internal viscera, can 

 be plainly seen through it. The three anterior ambulacral ves- 

 sels are approximated, and on these the tentacular feet are nu- 

 merous and well developed, with a sucking-disk supported by a 

 round cribriform calcareous plate, or more frequently by sev- 

 eral wedge-shaped radiating plates arranged in the form of a 

 rosette ; and these three ambulacra form together, at all events 

 in the female, a special ambulatory surface. 



The two ambulacral vessels of the bivium are also approxi- 

 mated along the back ; and thus the two inter-ambulacral spaces 

 on the sides of the animal, between the external trivial ambu- 

 lacra and the ambulacra of the bivium, are considerably wider 

 than the other three ; consequently, in a transverse section, the 



