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512 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. — [10] 
and obliquely seated on the branches. It belongs to the family Chryso- 
gorgide, recently established by the writer for this and several other 
related deep-sea genera, nearly all having a brilliantly iridescent axis, 
and most of them with spiral branches. 
We also dredged, in 858 to 1,735 fathoms, another allied new species, 
representing a new genus in this family. I have called it Lepidogorgia 
gracilis. It grows in the form of a very slender, tall, round, unbranched 
stem, about 3 feet high. The axis is iridescent, and the root is divided 
into many divergent branches, which are stony, white, round, and much 
branched, and when detached look like branching corals of a very differ- 
ent nature. The polyps are large, prominent, obliquely seated, secund 
and far apart along the stem, which is covered with a thin layer of small 
oblong scales. Lepidisis caryophyllia V. is also a coral that grows in 
the shape of a tall simple stem, a yard or more high, but its axis is di- 
vided into joints, the longer ones white, calcareous, and hollow, alterna- 
ting with brown, short, horny ones. Its polyp-calicles are spinose and 
very long and clavate, and when the tentacles are, as usually seen, rolled 
up in a ball at the end, they resemble cloves in shape, a character to 
which the name refers. It was often taken in 1,098 to 1,735 fathoms, 
and its dead, stony joints must be abundant on the bottom, for they 
afford attachment for many other creatures of various kinds. The 
smaller and much branched, bush-like, orange-brown coral, Acanella 
Normani V.,is the most common of all the corals. It has been dredged 
in a great many localities, both by the ‘Fish Hawk” and ‘‘Albatross,” 
in 225 to 1,300 fathoms, often in great numbers, several hundreds some- 
times coming up ina single haul. It grows about a foot high, and is 
often nearly as broad as high, its branches growing out three or four 
together, in close whorls, from the horny joints. It is decidedly phos- 
phorescent. Many other creatures, such as Actinie, hydroids, barna- 
cles, worms, and Ophiurans of several species are frequently attached to 
it, so that in this way it is a valuable aid to us in bringing up these 
abyssal creatures. One peculiar Ophiuran, Astrochele Lymani V., oc- 
curs in great numbers on this coral, which is its regular home. It 
twines its long slender arms, which bear numerous clusters of small 
hooks, closely around the branches of the coral, and it cannot be easily 
removed without breaking the arms. A dozen or more frequently occur 
on a single coral, and are often accompanied by Ophiacantha millespina 
and other species having similar habits. 
The Acanthogorgia armata Y. is a large and much branched gorgonian 
with a horny axis, and long, clavate, spinose calicles. Some fine living 
specimens were taken in 407 and 640 fathoms. When living it was pale 
orange, or salmon-color, but it quickly turns either dark brown or black 
jn aleohol or when dried. On the outside of Brown’s Bank, off South- 
ern Nova Scotia, at several stations, the “ Albatross” dredged, in 101 to 
131 fathoms, a number of good specimens of the great bush-coral, Prim- 
