REPORT ON THE PENNATULIDA. 219 



rachis, or else some distance above this point. More than this, in 

 addition to this imperfection at the lower end, all the specimens are 

 imperfect at the upper end also. 



All seven of the Oban specimens are, indeed, only fragments : in all 

 cases both the tops and the stalks are wanting ; in four specimens 

 the fracture at the lower end has taken place at the junction of stalk 

 and racliis ; while in the remaining three it has occurred somewhat 

 higher up, in the lower part of the rachis. 



This mutilated condition of the specimens of VirguUuia is a very 

 interesting point. It might at tirst be thought that the Birmingham 

 Society had for some reason or other been exceptionallj' unlucky, but 

 this is not the case. The concurrent testimony of all naturalists who 

 have dredged or described I'irgtdaria iiiirabilis agrees in showing that 

 this mutilation is not exceptional, but is on the contrary the almost 

 invariable rule. Dalyell, writing on this point, says : — " Neither can 

 I certify from what I myself have seen, or from the narrative of others, 

 that in this country it has occurred entire and unmutilated on any 

 occasion whatever. I have not had the good fortune of finding a 

 representation ot it in the perfect state ; " * and KoUiker, our greatest 

 authority on the \. hole group of Pennatulida, remarks, that of V. mirabiUs 

 a perfect unmutilated specimen has never yet been seen.f 



Specimens with the lower end or stalk complete are very rare, but 

 a certain number have been described and figured by Dalyell, Kolliker, 

 and others. No description has yet appeared, so far as we can 

 ascertain, of a specimen with the upper end perfect, and Kolliker ex- 

 pressly states that he has never seen one. We have had the good fortune 

 to find one such specimen in the Glasgow University Museum, believed 

 to have been dredged off the west coast of Scotland, but with the 

 exact locality and date of capture unrecorded. Though perfect at the 

 top, this specimen, which is nine inches in length, is only a partial 

 excej^tion to the general rule concerning mutilation, for it is broken off 

 below at what appears to be the usual place, the junction of rachis 

 and stalk. 



From this Glasgow specimen, which will be moi'e fully described 

 further on, the upper part of Fig. 1 has been drawn; i.e., the rachis 

 with its leaves of polypes. The stalk in this figure is copied from a 

 figure given by Dalyell, and is indicated with dotted lines, as we have 

 not ourselves had an opportunity of seeing it. 



The almost invariable mutilation which specimens of Viifjitlaria 

 undergo is certainly a point of great interest, more especially as it does 

 not appear to affect either of the two allied genera. Funiculi iici and 

 Peniuitulfi, which are found living side by side with it, and may be 

 brought up in the same haul of the dredge. We shall return to this 

 point further on. 



The polypes, as already noticed, are fused together to form leaves, 



* Dalyell : " Bare and Kemarkable Animals of Scotland," 1848, Vol. II., p. 181 

 i Kolliker : .\lcyonarien, 1872. p. 190. 



