218 REPORT ON THE PENNATULIDA. 



As with Pennatnla and Funicnlinn, so also with Virgularia, we have 

 found the existing descriptions and figures to be very incomplete and, 

 with few exceptions, inaccurate as well. English zoologists have 

 hitherto been specially culpable in this respect. Virgularia has long 

 been known to be abundant at many places along the Scotch coast, 

 and yet the stock figure of this genus given in English books at the 

 present day is not taken from a British specimen at all, but is copied 

 from a figure by O. F. Miiller in his " Zoologia Danica," published in 

 1776. This figure, the first ever published from a living specimen, and 

 which in its original form is imperfect and unsatisfactory, has been 

 copied and recopied, losing at each operation something of what 

 truthfulness it originally possessed, until it has culminated in the 

 absolutely unrecognisable travesty given in Gosse's "Marine Zoology," 

 or, worse still, in Nicholson's "Manual of Zoology," a drawing which a 

 moment's glance at an actual specimen would have shown to be 

 absolutely false. 



Partly in the hope of removing this national reproach, and partly 

 in the endeavour to utilise to the best advantage the specimens so 

 freely placed at our disposal by the Birmingham Natural History 

 Society, we have been led to attempt as complete a description of the 

 anatomy of Virgularia, as the imperfect histological preservation 

 of our material has permitted, and to illustrate our description by 

 figures drawn with the camera from the objects themselves. 

 General A.ccouxt. 



In general appearance, as shown iu Plate IV., Fig. I., Virgularia is 

 in many respects intermediate between Funiculiiia and Peniuitula ; for 

 while it has the slender shape and proportions of the former {cf. Plate I., 

 Fig. 1.), it agrees with the latter in that the polypes, instead of being 

 inserted separately and independently into the rachi^, are fused 

 together so as to form leaves [cf. Plate III., Fig. 1). 



As in the other two genera, so also in Virgularia, we distinguish a 

 cylindrical axial x^ortion traversed by a central calcareous stem, and 

 divisible into an upper part, the rachis (Fig. 1. a) bearing the polypes, 

 and a lower part or stalk (Fig. 1. h), which has no polypes, and is in the 

 natural condition planted in the sea bottom. 



Concerning the stalk, however, the Oban specimens tell us nothing, 

 for they are all broken short either at the junction of the stalk and 



rachis, with the stem, main canals, radial cauals, and zooids ; also the structure 

 of the individual polypes, and their relations to cue another and to the rachis. 

 The most dorsal polype is represented entire ; the others as if bisected 

 horizontally. The several polyiJes are drawu iu different degrees of expansion 

 or retraction to show the alteratious produced thereby in the arrangement of 

 the parts, aud especially in the calyx. X 14. 



Fig. 0. — Transverse section through the lower end of the rachis, showing the 

 stem, main canals, radial canals, rudimentary polypes ; and the ova, both 

 mature aud developing. X 18. 



Fig. 7. — A series of three transverse sections through different parts of 

 polypes. The uppermost section passes through the base of the retracted 

 tentacles, aud through the oesophageal portion of the stomach. The middle 

 section passes through the mesenterial tilameuts just below the stomach, aud 

 shows the arrangement of the filaments iu a set of two long ones and a set of six 

 short ones. The lower section passes through the body-cavity below the short 

 mesenterial filaments ; it shows tlie two long tilaments and the six ridge-like 

 mesenteries which bear higher up the short tilaments. X 21. 



