214 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 
Famity ALCYONIDA. 
“The tones of the majestic sea 
Have meanings too sublime for me, 
When billows lift their voice on high, 
And clouds are thundering their reply. 
T love to hear its soften’d tones, 
Its hush’d complaints, its under moans, 
When waves subsiding sink to rest, 
And sunbeams sleep upon its breast.” —Lillen Roberts. 
Genus XXI. ALCYONIUM, Linnaeus. 
Gen. Char. Polype-mass lobed or incrusting, spongious, the 
skin coriaceous, marked with stellated pores; interior gelati- 
nous, netted with tubular fibres, and perforated with longitudinal 
canals, terminating in the polype-cells, which are subcutaneous 
and scattered. Polypes exsertile.—Johnston. 
1. Aucyontum picitatum, Dead Man’s Hands, Dead 
Man’s Toes. 
Hab. On stones, shells, etc., m deep water. 
This sponge-looking zoophyte takes its name from A/eyon, 
the kingfisher; and the fable is, that the bird formed its 
nest of the foam of the sea, and floated it on the deep, and 
that old Neptune, in kindness, kept the waves in check 
all the time the bird was hatching ;—hence is derived the 
