"^rn^, fIT!' °i«m] ^oxjal Microscopical Societij. 77 



assistance of that instrument. There are, I may safely presume, 

 but few microscopists laying claim to the most modest collection of 

 mounted slides who do not possess, in some form or other, prepared 

 either as an opaque or transparent object, specimens labelled " Spi- 

 cules of Gorgonia." 



Now, considering there are several hundred species of so-called 

 Gorgonias belonging to some score or more of distinct genera, such 

 vague nomenclature as the above is unsatisfactory and indefinite in 

 the extreme, and to the scientific mind simply painful. 



The slid&s of Gorgonia spicules usually offered for sale by the 

 dealers contain for the most part neatly fusiform or more or less 

 irregularly tuberculate spicula of a brilliant crimson lake, or trans- 

 parent and colourless, with all the intermediate tints, and suggestive, 

 for the want of a happier simile, of the brilliant sticks of pink 

 and white sugar-candy, the admiration of our bygone, and perhaps 

 lamented childhood. 



Enticed, partly by the resolve to determine to which species the 

 form just alluded to might be referred, but more especially by 

 the desire of ascertaining to what extent the modifications in form 

 of the various spicula might be made subservient as a basis for a 

 natural system of classification of the whole group, and also to 

 ascertain how far these modifications harmonized with the existing 

 generic arrangement of species, I have recently devoted a short 

 interval to the study of the Govgonacese, both Avith regard to the 

 structure of the spicula, and also to that of the entire organisms 

 from whence they are derived. 



The calcareous bodies or spicula of the Gorgonidm have long 

 been familiar to the naturalist, and as far back as 1786 our distin- 

 guished countryman, John Ellis, figured and described as "httle 

 purple glassy needles, irregularly but closely put together length- 

 ways," the symmetrical fusiform bodies of which the entire axis of 

 Gorgonia hriareus, Ell. et Sol. [Briaretim gorgonideum, M. Edw,), 

 is composed. Another name, still more familiar to every microsco- 

 pist, and whose numerous and exquisite prej)arations in the Museum 

 of the Koyal CoUege of Surgeons bear ample testimony to the fervent 

 zeal which animated him, is that of Professor Quekett. This gentle- 

 man devoted much time and attention to the study of the Gorgonidx, 

 and has figured and described numerous forms of spicula both in his 

 ' Lectures on Histology ' and in the ' Illustrated Catalogue ' of the 

 histological series contained in the museum referred to. But though 

 difierent forms of these spicula have from time to time been referred 

 to, it is only very recently that they have been studied with a view 

 of making their characters available as a basis for a natural system 

 of classification, and even then the majority of naturalists have 

 arrived at the conclusion that though these characters might be 

 made highly subservient as an aid to specific diagnosis, yet l")eyond 



