208 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 
are of a fine violet-colour, but when we receive them some 
are yellow, others white.” (//is.) 
Its claims to be British are doubtful. 
5. GORGONIA FLABELLUM-VENERIS, Venus’s Fan. 
Hab. Cornwall, Dr. Borlase ; Leith shore, Mr. Mackay ; 
Lamlash Bay, D. L. 
Though we have mentioned these habitats, we do not 
believe that it was found, as a British zoophyte, in any of 
them. When we were in the Isle of Arran it was brought 
to us as something very rare, that had been dredged in 
Lamlash Bay. It certainly was a portion of Venus’s fan, 
but a fragment in which life had long been extinct, and 
cast overboard, we doubt not, from some vessel from foreign 
shores, that had found shelter in the bay. The high autho- 
rity of the late Dr. Neill, so worthy a man and so good a 
naturalist, led many to suppose that it had been found alive 
at Leith, but a letter from Professor E. Forbes shows, satis- 
factorily, how a mistake may have arisen. “ Dr. Goodsir 
has a large specimen of the G. flabellum-Veneris, dredged 
in the Forth. The fisherman who brought it described it 
as being covered with living flesh when taken. On exami- 
nation we found that it presented the curious appearance of 
West Indian incrusting shells and British mixed, and the 
