MR. GOSSE ON A NEW FORM OF CORYNOID POLYPES. 115 



the obtuse summit of Coryne Cerberus, as I have elsewhere recorded* ; and confirmed 

 my suggestion of the natural affinities of the form. 



The principal colony remained for many weeks under my observation, without any 

 noticeable change. The terminal portion of the tube, which at first had been so dia- 

 phanous, gradually became more opake, and disfigured by the growth on it of confervoid 

 threads, and by the entanglement of a multitude of minute DlatomacecB in its surface. 

 At length the Sabella spontaneously quitted its tenement : the parasites appeared at first 

 unchanged and unaffected ; but, strange to say, before the lapse of two days, they all 

 gradually died away; as if theii- existence depended on the presence of their patron. 

 They seemed to become feeble, attenuated, and almost motionless, before they dis- 

 appeared. 



While they lived they afforded me much entertainment, as also to those scientific 

 friends to whom I had opportunities of exhibitiag them. When I used to see them 

 smTounding the mansion of the Sabella, gazing, as it were, after him, as he retreated 

 into his castle, flingiag their wild arms over its entrance, and keeping watch with uutu-ing 

 vigilance until he reappeared, it seemed to require no very vivid fancy to imagine them 

 so many guardian demons ; and the Lares of the old Roman mythology suggested for 

 them a name. 



Bearing in mind the extraordinary cycle of phsenomena that have been proved to occui- 

 in the reproduction of the Hydi'oid Polypes ia general, and of the Corynidce in particular ; 

 it is highly probable that the animal, whose appearance and manners I have been 

 describing, would, in the natm'al prolongation of its existence, have budded off some 

 Medusoid forms, endowed with proper sexual functions. I detected, indeed, no trace of 

 (so-called) ovarian capsules, nor any evidence of increase, except that of the gemination 

 of the individual zooids from the common root-thread. This, however, by no means 

 disproves the possibility, nor even the probability, of such developments, at a more 

 matm-e stage of the polypoid condition. Had I discovered such, and were I able to follow 

 out the life-history of the animal, and to show that it agrees in its reproductive phaeno- 

 mena with other Coryniform Polypes, it wotdd stiU be an open question, — ^to which 

 condition — whether the Coryniform or the Medusiform — -specific identity is to be assigned ; 

 or, in other words, which ought to bear the nomina generica et trivialia, and to take its 

 place in the System of Nature. Is the Medusa the animal, of which the Polype is the 

 larva ? Or is the Coryne the animal, of which the Medusa is but the detached and loco- 

 motive sexual organ ? 



I incline to affirm the former of these two hypotheses ; but yet, in accordance with 

 precedent, by which the Corynidce and Campanulariadce are reckoned as animals worthy 

 of names, I may venture, provisionally at least, to register, under systematic appellations, 

 the form before me, and wait for ucav light as to its future history. 



Genus Lar (Gosse). 



Zoophytum e familia Corynidarum, nudum, associatum sed sejunctum, erectum, e filo radical! repente 

 retiformi saliens, tentaculis simplicibus filiformibus instructum. 



* Devonshire Coast, p. 223, plate xiv. fig. 4. 



q2 



