147 
lines and Alga. It varies from two to three feet in height. The 
axis is known from the unbranched species of Gorgonia by being more 
calcareous, and of a pale greyish colour. 
Joseph Millingin, Esq., F.L.S., the Secretary of the Royal Society 
of Van Diemen’s Land, has kindly sent me the following particulars 
of this coral :— 
«It was fished up from a depth of some fathoms in D’Entrecas- 
teaux Channel, between the mainland of Tasmania and Bruce’s Island. 
It is found, as you will see, affixed to rocks and stones, and to dead, 
broken and half-decayed oyster and scallop-shells, &c. It usually ex- 
ists in groups, groves or families, varying from three to four to a great 
many. The long delicate stem, which is horny-looking and highly elas- 
tic when dry, varies from the thickness of a knitting-wire to that of a 
erow-quill, and from its mineralized and root-like attachment, tapers 
gradually and gracefully to the beautiful acicular point, attaining not 
unfrequently a length of two or three feet, and having its entire sur- 
' face covered with a calcareous coat of a cream-yellow colour, deli- 
eately annulated, so as much to resemble the fine string of wooden 
beads worn as a necklace by the poorer natives of Bengal, but with 
this difference,—that in the coralline the beads form a connected or 
rather continuous chain, independently of the delicate elastic centre 
upon which the mineral structure is deposited. I am informed that 
in one or two instances, when these corallines were procured, they 
were enveloped throughout with a mucilaginous or jelly-like substance, 
which when they become dry is exsiccated and shriveled to such a 
degree as to be scarcely if at all traceable. You will be able to say 
whether you consider it likely that there exists, in the recent and living 
state of the zoophyte, such an external and soft organization.” 
This jelly-like substance was doubtless the polypes. 
3. ON THE EVIDENCES OF AFFINITY AFFORDED BY THE SKULL IN 
THE UneutaTe Mamaia. By H. N. Turner, Jun. 
I had occasion in the introductory part of my communication on 
the arrangement of the Carnivora, to make allusion to certain details 
of structure in the crania of the Pachydermatous and Ruminant Mam- 
malia; and I there pointed out a few peculiarities, which clearly di- 
stinguished the Perissodactyla of Professor Owen, both from the Ru- 
minant and Non-ruminant Artiodactyla, and also the two latter divi- 
sions from each other. It is to our eminent Comparative Anatomist 
that we are indebted, by the discovery of some new characters, and 
the correction of certain former errors of observation, for the establish- 
ment of that mode of subdividing the Ungulata which first suggested 
itself to Cuvier ; but there can be no doubt, that when the entire 
anatomy of the order is investigated with this view, many constant 
distinctions will yet be made apparent, and our appreciation of the 
comparative degrees of affinity among its members will become clearer 
as we proceed. 
In taking up the subject as it has thus been left, I have first di- 
rected my attention to the skull, as being that part in which the 
