Cork Cuvierian Society. 155 



CORK CTJVIEKIAN SOCIETY. 



Nov. 3, 1852. — Robert J. Lecky, Esq., President, in the Chair. 



Dr. Haines exhibited two species of Holothurice, one of them new 

 to the British fauna ; it is the Holothuria tubulosa, and is fully the 

 size of the large cucumber to which those animals have been appro- 

 priately compared : the upper surface or back of this animal is studded 

 with tubercles, the outer ones being the largest ; the whole under sur- 

 face is thickly covered with ambulacriform tubes partially retractile ; 

 two lateral lines barely mark off two bands of them, leaving the cen- 

 tral band much wider ; the animal is of a dark brown colour, but 

 nearly black on the upper surface ; when contracted both extremities 

 tilt upwards ; the short thick tentacula count from fourteen to twenty, 

 and can be retracted within the oral orifice ; into that orifice open the 

 oesophagus, seven or eight appendicula caeca, a clear vesicular sac, 

 and the single duct from the numerous ovarian tubuli. 



The intestinal tube, which is filled with sand, makes one large 

 flexure in the abdomen before terminating in the cloaca, and is 

 sustained in most of its course by a very delicate mesentery ; from a 

 considerable portion of the line of attachment of the mesentery hangs 

 a beautiful open network of vessels resembling an omentum, but not 

 possessing a continuous membrane between them ; this network is 

 described as consisting of veins and arteries ; the upper portion of it, 

 which has more free intermingUng with the respiratory lobules, has 

 fine vessels, but in the lower portion the vessels and lacework look 

 coarser. 



The anterior third of the animal is occupied by the red ovarian 

 tubuli hanging loosely in the general cavity, full of ova in one speci- 

 men, but all discharged in another. The respiratory apparatus (renal 

 of Himter) corresponds with the description in other species ; it com- 

 mences by one tube near the termination of the intestine, and ramifies 

 in two branches, one up among the viscera, the other along the wall 

 of the sac. There is further, occupying the lower third of the animal, 

 a large mass of white tubuli, their lower extremities hanging into the 

 cloaca, and this mass is bound to the general wall by a single strong 

 band and a few fibres close to the end of the respiratory tube. This 

 mass of white tubes is not described in any British species by our 

 authors ; Cuvier probably had this species before him, for he men- 

 tions the white tubes, calling them 'vesiculae seminales,' and de- 

 scribing the order as hermaphrodite ; — Owen however says the order 

 is not hermaphrodite, but in his 'Anatomy' there is no mention of 

 these tubes, nor is there in the 'Hunterian Descriptive Catalogue's' 

 account of the details of the Holothuria tremula. Possibly therefore 

 this structure is peciiliar to this or to some species, and it certainly 

 seems to support the hermaphrodite character of at least this species. 

 Now this species has the property of what is called cotton-spinning, 

 and it is produced by the white tubes being at times protruded from 

 the vent ; and they are most singularly extensile — they may be drawn 

 out to almost any length. 



