46 ANTHOZOA HYDROIDA. 



This animal production so perfectly resembles a tree in miniature, 

 deprived of its leaves, that persons unacquainted with the nature of 

 zoophytes, cannot be persuaded that it is not of a vegetable nature. 

 Tt is from three to six inches high, rooted by a densely interwoven 

 mass of tubular fibres, forming by their cohesion and intertwining 

 the stem, which is sometimes as thick as the little finger. This is irre- 

 gularly divided into many compound branches formed like the stalk 

 itself, but the ultimate branches consist of a single fibre not thicker 

 than ordinary thread. They are fistular, horn-coloured, smooth, 

 alternate, erecto-patent, appearing as if they were rather soldered to 

 the main tube, than productions of it, wrinkled with a few rings at 

 or near their origins, and sometimes there are a few rings near the 

 middle of the branchlet. The polypes are of a reddish colour, and 

 appear indolent in disposition, contracting slowly under external 

 irritations : they have about twenty whitish tentacula arranged in 

 one row round a broad oral disk. 



It is possible this may be a state of B. ramosum, but its arbores- 

 cent character, and the complexness of its structure, are so remark- 

 able that I have willingly followed the example of Pallas, who has 

 given a description of the species in his usual accurate and expres- 

 sive style. 



2. E. RAMOSUM, slender, pinnatedfy branched, < 

 tube ; brancJilets erecto-patent, ringed at their origins, poly- 

 piferous. Ellis. 



PLATE VI. FIG. 1, 2, 3. 



Corallina tubularia gracilis et ramosa, axillis ramulorum contortis, Ellis Corall. 31, 

 no. 3, tab. xvi. fig. a ; and tab. xvii. fig. a, A . Ttibularia ramosa, Lin. Syst. x. 

 804. Lin. Syst. 1302. Soland. Zooph. 32. Oliv. Zool. Adriat. 276. Berk. 

 Syn. i. 214. Turt. Brit. Faun. 210. Stew. Elem. ii. 437. Wern. Mem. i. 563. 

 Lam. Anim. s. Vert. ii. 110: 2de edit. ii. 126. Lamour. CoralL Trans 101. 

 Flem. Brit. Anim. 552. Blainv. Actinol. 470, pi. 30, fig. 3, copied from Ellis. 

 Hogg's Stock. 34. Stark Elem. ii. 441, pi. 8, fig. 15, from Ellis. Templeton 

 in Mag. Nat. Hist. ix. 466. Tliompson in Ann. Nat. Hist. v. 250. Lamour. 

 Expos. Method. 17. Couch Zooph. Corn. 4 : Corn. Faun. iii. 14. Gould's Mas- 

 sachus. 350. Tubularia trichoides, Pall. Elench. 84. Lamour. Corall. 101.;, 

 Blainv. Actinolog. 470. Fistularia ramosa, Mull. Zool. Dan. prod. 254. Euden- 

 drium ramosum, Elirenl. Corall. roth. Meer. 72. 



Hab.On oysters and other marine productions. At Whitstable 

 on the Kentish shore ; and at Emsworth, on the borders of Sussex, 

 JEllis. Leith shore, found by the late Mr. Mackay, Jameson* 

 Very common on stones, mussel and oyster shells near Stock ton-on- 



