112 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
more than ordinarily puzzling to the systematist, as it offers 
several points of intergradation between the families Muriceide 
and Primnoide. It bears so great a general resemblance to 
the latter that I at once placed it in that family. The color is 
a light buffy yellow so characteristic of the primnoids. The 
ealyces are arranged exactly as in certain genera of that family 
and are in the shape of bent clubs facing the stem, a condition 
which, so far as I know, has never been found in the Muri- 
ceidez. But when we come to examine this form in detail, char- 
acters essentially muriceid at once reveal themselves. For in- 
stance, the polyps are not protected by a real operculum, the 
most characteristic feature of the Primnoide; but the infolded 
tentacles have the dorsal surface encrusted with symmetrically 
arranged spicules, a very pronounced character of the Muri- 
ceide, and the spiculation of the stem is exactly that of the 
genus Versluysia discussed above. There is the same outer lay- 
er of very large spindles looking like a procession of worms 
crawling up the branch and bending slightly to accommodate 
themselves to the bases of the calyces. These do not form a 
solid layer, but are separated so as to expose processes of the 
underlying layer of smaller spicules. Moreover, while there is 
a crown of thorns around the calyx walls, a feature found in 
both families under discussion, these are the points of spindle- 
shaped spicules without a basal branched part such as are char- 
acteristic of certain muriceids; neither are the thorn-like pro- 
jections from a scale-like base as in many primnoids, thus dif- 
fering from both these families. Taking it all im all, this form 
really offers an intergradation between the Muriceide and 
Primnoidex that is most interesting. Without wishing to com- 
mit himself definitely, the author provisionally regards it as a 
Murceid near the genus Versluysia which has adopted a camou- 
flage very successfully mimicking a Primnoid; but it must 
be confessed that no advantage can be imagined to result from 
this imposture, and it looks like a perfectly gratuitous attempt 
to befuddle the hardly used systematist. 
A representative of the remarkable genus Placogorgia was 
found at Station 19, depth 80 fathoms. It shows the peculiar 
disk-like spicules of this genus, the scales being round and look- 
ing like minute rosettes. Of the ten species of this genus thus 
