52 ANTHOZOA HYDROIDA. 



pany's service, and had visited those places which lie in the course 

 of its trade, whence he brought numerous plants, &c. to enrich the 

 museum of Petiver. The latter styles him " that industrious pro- 

 moter of Natural Philosophy, and my very ingenious friend ;" 

 "my very worthy friend;" "my hearty friend;" and the 20th 

 plate of Petiver's English Plants is gratefully dedicated to the me- 

 mory of this " his curious friend," to whom he says he was " beyond 

 expression obliged." Cuninghame is the author of a paper on the 

 plants of the island of Ascension in Phil. Trans, no. 255 ; and seems 

 to have deserved the praises which his contemporaries bestowed. 



4. T. GBACILIS, clustered, the polype-tubes slightly branched 

 at the base, slender, smooth and unwrinkled; bulbules spherical, 

 shortly pedicled. J. B. Harvey. 



PLATE IV. FIG. 3, 4, 5. 



Tubularia gracilis, Harvey in Proc. Zool. Soc. 1836, no. 41, p. 54. Tub. larynx, 

 var./J. Johns. Brit. Zooph. 116. Tub. calamaris, Van Beneden sur les Tubul. 46, 

 pi. 1. fig. 1-6. 



Hob. In deep water, parasitical in tufts of Tubularia indivisa 

 and Eudendrium rameum. 



This species grows in complicated tufts : the tubes are about 

 three inches in height, slender, of a pale colour, thin and corneous, 

 smooth and unwrinkled, except after being dried, when some parts 

 appear to be slightly wrinkled, particularly at the origin of the 

 branches. The naked body of the polypes is rose-red, more or less 

 deeply tinted, while the tentacula are milk-white or faintly tinged 

 with red. The oral series is very short, and usually held in an 

 erect position : the other forms a circle round the most bulging part 

 of the body, and consists of more than twenty long filaments, which 

 spread like rays from a centre, or droop elegantly, being usually 

 held still, or allowed listlessly to follow the undulations of the water. 

 When the polypes are all displayed, they afford a very interesting 

 spectacle, equalled by no other species I have seen ; the crimson heads 

 contrasting finely with their white polypidoms, especially when 

 loaded with the reproductive bulbules which pullulate from the 

 inner side of the bases of the inferior tentacula. When few in num- 

 ber and immature, these bulbules are sessile and separate, but in 

 their progress to evolution they form grape-like clusters : each sepa- 



