260 Rev. T. Hincks's Catalogue of Zoophytes 



Specimens of this species are often coloured red. The colour 

 is due to a very minute Alga, which covers the surface with a 

 network of chain-like vegetation. 



L. geniculata is a phosphorescent species, and the sudden 

 illumination of a whole forest of it on some dark frond is a truly 

 beautiful spectacle. If it is agitated in the dark, a bluish light 

 runs along each stem, flashing fitfully from cell to cell. 



5. L. flexuosa, Hincks. 



. Syn. L. gelatinosa, var, a, Johnston, Brit. Zooph. pi. 25. figs. 3, 4. 



Extremely common : on rocks and stones between tide-marks. 

 This species and L. neglecta are the prevalent littoral forms. 

 In some of the Torbay coves almost every stone is profusely 

 covered with L. flexuosa. It also clothes the sides of rocks 

 with its miniature forests, which are left beaten down and half- 

 dried during the recession of the tide. 



In some situations the stems have a tendency to run out at 

 the extremity into tendril-like fibres. 



There has been much blundering about this well-marked 

 species, and it is still often carelessly confounded with L. gela- 

 tinosa by writers on natural history. It may be known at once 

 by its flexuose habit, its large broad cells with long pedicle and 

 even rim, and its much-elongated truncate capsules with their 

 numerous sporosacs. 



6. L. Loveni, Allman. 



Syn. Sea-thread Coralline, Ellis, Corall. pi. xii. c and 38 b. 

 Campanularia dichotoma, Lister, Phil. Trans. 1834. 



geniculata, Loven, Wiegmann's Archiv, 1837; Schulze, Miiller's 



Archiv, 1851. 



On Fucus, at Dartmouth and Torquay. 



This species, the reproduction of which has been studied with 

 more or less completeness by several eminent naturalists, was 

 first defined by Prof. Allman, in one of his valuable papers on 

 the Hydroid Zoophytes ( f Annals ' for August 1859). His de- 

 scription, however, is inaccurate in one important particular. 

 He speaks of the hydrothecrc as having an even rim, whereas the 

 margin of the tall and slender cells is cut into about ten shallow 

 and flattisb. crenations. So hyaline and delicate, however, is the 

 edge, that it requires very careful manipulation to bring them 

 into view. 



There are sometimes as many as four or five of the fixed Me- 

 dusoids attached at once to the gonotheca ; but commonly they 

 are less numerous. 



The Laomedea gracilis of Sars, figured in his ' Middelhavet's 

 Littoral-Fauna' (tab. 2. fig. 5), is a second species which is pro- 

 pagated by means of fixed extra-capsular Medusoids. 



