162 ANTHOZOA ASTEROIDA. 



perfect specimens ; the range of their habitat is from Holywood to 

 Bangor Bay, but in the two extreme points they are met with in 

 the greatest plenty ; their favourite place of residence seems to be 

 a soft muddy bottom, being rarely met with on a sandy one ; in one 

 specimen forwarded by me to the Royal Dublin Society, the animal 

 has the appearance of a Shepherd's Crook, being turned up for 

 two inches at the base of the axis." W. M'Colla. 



" Seems to represent a quill stripped of its feathers. The base 

 looks like a pen in this as in the other species, swelling a little from 

 the end, and then tapering. The upper part is thicker, with alter- 

 nate semi-circular pectinated swellings, larger towards the middle, ta- 

 pering upwards, and terminating in a thin bony substance, which 

 passes through the whole." Sowerby. " From six to ten inches in 

 length." " They perfectly correspond in form and external appear- 

 ance with the elegant coloured figure given by Muller. Their axis 

 is calcareous, solid, white, brittle, flexible, cylindrical, of equal thick- 

 ness throughout, and exhibits no mark of attachment at either end. 

 When broken, it exhibits a radiated surface, like the broken spine of 

 an echinus. The axis appears to have little connection with the 

 fleshy part, and to consist of concentric layers deposited by the soft 

 parts surrounding it. When a portion of the axis is broken off" from 

 either extremity, the animal retracts at that part, so as continually 

 to expose a fresh naked portion of the axis : hence we can take out 

 the axis entirely from its soft sheath, and we always find the lower 

 pinnae of the animal drawn up closely together, as if by the frequent 

 breaking of the base. These very delicate and brittle animals seem 

 to be confined to a small circumscribed part of the coast which has a 

 considerable depth and a muddy bottom, and the fishermen accus- 

 tomed to dredge at that place believe, from the cleanness of the Vir- 

 gularise when brought to the surface, that they stand erect at the 

 bottom with' one end fixed in the mud or clay. Muller's specimens 

 were likewise found on a part of the Norwegian coast with a muddy 

 bottom.* The Polypi, much resembling those of the common Lobu- 

 laria digitata, are long, cylindrical, transparent, marked with longi- 

 tudinal white lines, and have eight tentacula which present long 

 slender transparent filaments or cilige on each of the lateral surfaces 



* That the Virgularia lives partially immersed in the mud, seems to be proved by 

 the observations of Mr. C. Darwin. See Voyage of the' Adventure and Beagle, iii. p. 

 117. Muller positively asserts the fact. " Basis seu extremitas fundo argilloso in- 

 fixa ex parenchymate carnosiori seu lamellis, quarum Hydrae nondum evolute sunt, 

 crassior ac utrinque serrulata est." 



