352 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 
Specimens are occasionally met with that are in some de- 
gree roughened with strap-like processes, scattered over 
the surface, sometimes in clusters of two or three together, 
about a quarter of an inch in height, of the same horny 
substance as the cells. They are closed at the top, and it 
has been conjectured that they are ovaries. The polypes 
have numerous tentacula, which expand in the form of a 
bell. ‘ When the polypes are all protruded they form a 
beautiful object under the microscope, from their numbers, 
their delicacy, the regularity of their disposition, and the 
vivacity of their motions, now expanding their tentacula 
into a beautiful campanulate figure, now contracting the 
circle, and ever and anon retreating within the shelter of 
their cells.” (Dr. Johnston.) Ihave elsewhere stated that 
T have seen a specimen of F. membranacea (and Dr. John- 
ston has seen its equal) five feet in length by eight inches 
in breadth. As every little cell had been inhabited by a 
living polype, by counting the cells on a square inch, I cal- 
culated that this web of silvery lace had been the work and 
the habitation of above two millions of industrious, and, we 
doubt not, happy inmates; so that a single colony, on a 
submarine island of a foot in length, was almost equal in 
number to the population of Scotland. Specimens “of this 
