Miscellaneous. 411 
Spicula.—The characteristic spicule is that figured by Grube 
(‘Die Insel Lussin und ihre Meeresfauna,’ 1864, fig. 7a) and 
Jeffrey Bell (Cat. chin. pl. vi. fig. to left and more magnified above), 
usually with four foramina and some nodules on the surface and edge ; 
they may be regarded, as Theel observes, as imperfect ‘“ tables,” the 
legs being undeveloped—but rarely the foramina are more nume- 
rous and the legs are in some measure developed. This characteristic 
spicule is sparingly scattered over the dermis. 
Ventral pedicels The stem with no other spicules than of the 
characteristic form, but the disk capped with a large cribriform 
plate (the foramina of which are not arranged in any regular order) ; 
round the base of this terminal plate the pedicel is surrounded with 
a circlet of elongated spicula, with foramina more or less developed 
in a row on each side of the central axis (figured by Bell, fig. 5, to 
right). 
Dorsal papille are white with a black tip. Some little distance 
beneath the dermis is a hollow coil composed of slightly curved rod- 
like spicules, which in their central portion are smooth and round in 
section and have their ends expanded and commonly rounded, pierced 
either with a few foramina or nodulous. Overlying this Gall are , 
spicules of the characteristic type, but mixed here with others of a 
modified and larger size, having eight or even more foramina, the 
additional foramina having been “built on to the sides of the original 
spicule after the usual manner of spicule growth. 
Tentacles invested with spicules which are large towards the 
base and gradually smaller distally, to correspond with the lessened 
size of the ramification of the tentacle; spicules arcuate or, more 
rarely, straight rods, their central portion roughened with a few 
nodules or blunted spines, the extremities attenuated, rugose with 
crowded little nodulous points; occasionally at the extremity and 
sometimes on central portion minute foramina are to be seen; such 
perforated spicules are somewhat flattened instead of round in 
section. 
Marenzeller is mistaken in supposing that this species does not 
attain so large a size in the Atlantic as in the Mediterranean. 
Some beautifully preserved specimens sent to me from the Plymouth 
Laboratory measure over 8 inches in length. 
The total absence of the oval spicules which Theel calls ‘ buttons ” 
at once distinguishes this species from H. tubulosa, H. Stellati, H. 
Sanctori, H. Helleri, and H. impatiens of the Mediterranean, with all 
of which I have compared it ; while the absence of the fine “ tables” 
of the northern H. tremula and A, intestinalis makes it impossible 
to confound it with those species. 
