46 NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN 



never again be jjassed over unnoticed. Another point regarding the 

 hydrothec^ may help to account for their being overlooked. This is the 

 fact that instead of being of a colorless transparency as hydrotheca^ usu- 

 ally are, they are of a delicate blue-green color, quite similar in tint to 

 many of the blue-green algae. 



The gonosome of species of Lafceidte is characterized by the massing to- 

 gether of the gouophores with many of the hydrothecae. This mass has 

 been called the "Coppinia" mass so often that the word "Coppinia" has 

 come to have a definite significance although it was first used in error. So 

 much is this the case that it seems as though we jnight use it regularly 

 now without the quotation marks. Bonnevie has found the coppinia mass 

 of several species and figured them; among them, the species, Filellum 

 serpens, which is nearly allied to F. expansum, but I believe no one has 

 discovered the coppinia mass of the latter species. I was fortunate enough 

 to obtain some excellent specimens of this species, growing over Euden- 

 drium on the piles of the bridge at the entrance of Lagoon Pond at Vine- 

 yard Haven. Many of the colonies had the gonosome present. The num- 

 ber of the hydrothecfe in the mass varied from about 20 to 80, arranged 

 so closely that in most cases the stolon could not be seen. Intermingled 

 with these were the much less numerous gonophores of a regular spherical 

 sporosac type; the female with few ova present, four seeming to be the 

 usual number, and the male much smaller than the female. The largest 

 mass was 2 mm. long, and surrounded the Eudendrium for the whole 

 length. These colonies with the gonosome were obtained on June 26. 



In a recent paper Kramp has the following paragraph as a footnote :i6 



" Filelhim? expansum Levinsen was set up under the reservation that 'it 

 is quite possible that they (the tubes) will prove to belong to a species of 

 the genus Folliculina or of a nearly related genus.' This species is found 

 in great numbers on leaves of Delesseria and such like from the Danmark 

 Expedition. I have often seen it with the two ciliated lobes characteristic 

 of Folliculina stretched out of the tubes, so that the reference to the genus 

 Folliculina is certain. Levinsen has asked me to communicate this here." 



I cannot reconcile this statement with the facts as I have observed them. 

 It scarcely seems probable that the specimens I have found belong to a 

 different group to those that Levinsen described. The form is so charac- 

 teristic and shows perfect agreement. Yet I have found the coppinia mass, 

 both male and female, entirely agreeing with the nature of the coppinia 

 in the genus Filellum. Moreover, though in the majority of cases the 

 zooid, if present, is withdrawn into the basal portion of the tube, in some 

 cases it is extended and shows the regular hydranth form. None were 

 extended enough to show plainly the exact number of tentacles. I have 

 seen nothing of the 'two ciliated lobes' nor can I believe they are present 

 in any specimen I have. In fact, there is nothing to indicate that the 

 specimens are hydrozoan but everything to indicate that they are hydroid. 



'"'• Kramp, P. Report on the Hydroids collected by the Danmark Expedition at North- 

 East Greenland, 1911, p. 374. 



