HYDROIDA — RALE. 29 



P. armata, All man, is an allied species, Allman's figures, 

 which represent the anterior sarcothecae as extremely slender 

 bodies being, according to Billard, unlike the actual structure, 

 which resembles that of P. campanula. The gonothecaa are 

 remarkably like those figured by Kirchenpauer, having only four 

 to six sarcothecaa disposed in a sinuous line down the dorsum. 

 Dr.'Hai'tlaub does not mention the gonotheoae of P. obconica, 

 so it is probable that he did not observe them. If P. obconica 

 is the same as P. bushii, Kirchenpauer's figures of the gonotheca 

 must be as incorrect as those of the trophosome, or else it must 

 vary remarkably. 



Both Kirchenpauer and Allman expressly state that the male 

 gonotheca? are without nematophores ; those of P. buskii 

 have two near the base. 



Lnc. — Great Australian Bight, 40 to 100 fathoms. 



Pl.UMULARlA PROCUMBENS, ,S*^e»cer. 



Plumularia procumbens, Spencer, Trans. Roy. Soc. Vict., ii., 

 1891, p. 130, pis. xxi.— xxiii. Bale, Proc. Roy. Soc. Vict,, 

 vi. (n.s.), 1893, p. 115, pi. v., figs 11-12. 



The material included a single specimen of P. procumbens 

 a species which is quite different in habit from any other of the 

 Australian Plumularia?. When in fluid or balsam the hydrocladia 

 are scarcely visible to the naked eye, so delicate and minute are 

 they, but the multitude of small branchlets, spi'inging from all 

 sides of the larger branches, give the zoophyte a peculiar bushy 

 or bristly aspect that is very characteristic. As in most other 

 species the short intermediate internodes of the hydrocladia bear 

 each a nematophore, therein differing from the original 

 specimens, collected in Port Phillip by the late Mr, J. B. Wilson, 

 in which, with rare exceptions, these short internodes were 

 unarmed. The pitcher-shaped hydrothecas are quite minute, and 

 the supracalycine sarcothecaa are in proportion very large, their 

 length being about the same as that of the hydrothecaa. 



hoc. — Great Australian Bight, 40 to 100 fathoms. 



Plumularia asymmetrica, $p. nov. 



(Plate iv., figs 2-3). 



Hydrophyton about two feet in height, polysiphonic, with 

 numerous ascending branches facing in the same direction, each 

 springing from an internode of the primary jointed stem 



