Dr. J. E. Gray on Hyalonema Sieboldii. 267 
Japan, have the tubercle or papilla formed by the contracted 
animal cylindrical, prominent, and truncated, and very unlike 
the slightly raised elongated oblong papilla of the contracted 
animal of the Portuguese specimens of Hyalonema lusitanicum; 
and the bark of all of them is covered with a sand-like coat, 
very different from the smooth bark of those which inhabit 
the Atlantic Ocean. 
Secondly, it is interesting as showing that the Japanese 
species, like the Portuguese one, sometimes lives free, and has 
the base of the coil entirely covered with animals, some of 
them being situated on the very extremity of the base. Indeed, 
from the number of specimens of this form that have been 
brought home in this collection, it may be as common as those 
that live in sponges; but, not being of such a large size, the 
latter may be preferred both by the collectors and the persons 
who purchase them and bring them over to this country. 
In the collection there are two anomalous specimens. One 
of them differs from all the other specimens of both varieties 
in the coil beng much more slender, formed of a comparatively 
small number of spicules, and very much longer than any of 
them. The coil is about 24 inches long, and scarcely half an 
inch in circumference. The bark that remains on the coil is 
thinner than usual, but is studded with regular, equal-sized, 
normal-shaped papille, but of a smaller size than in the other 
specimens. 
The other specimen has been evidently manipulated 
by the Japanese; and though the base is covered with pa- 
pulee, it is clear that the coil (or, rather, the two united coils of 
which it appears to be formed) belongs to corals that were 
attached to a sponge. This coil is very thick, and formed of 
very numerous spicules; the lower half and the conically 
attenuated base is covered with short strips of bark that have 
been artificially applied round it when the bark was in a fresh 
or moist state; the papillae on the bark, being probably taken 
from more than one specimen, are of very unequal sizes, and, 
from manipulation, of irregular form. The eggs of two sharks 
have also been artificially attached to this specimen. 
Specimens which have been thus artificially doctored are 
easily known from those that are covered with the proper bark 
of the coil. In the latter the papille or contracted animals 
have a regular arrangement and a uniform shape and size; 
while the tubercles or papille of the bark that has been arti- 
ficially applied are irregularly arranged and generally more or 
less distorted by the manipulation. 
P.S. I have no doubt there has been a considerable impor- 
tation of specimens of Hyalonema. Mr. Cutter has sent me 
