166 ANTHOZOA ASTEROIDA. 



triangular bristling tooth-like lobes which alternate with them. The 

 tentacula are pale pink, solid, and formed of a granular tissue. Be- 

 low the oral circle, the body is cylindrical, and marked by eight rose- 

 coloured lines, and at about half its height, it dilates into a broader 

 bottle-shaped base, within which are seen the bright red ovaries. 

 The base gradually passes into the investing skin of the rod, of which 

 the sheath of the polype and its teeth, may be regarded as an 

 extension. 



" Young specimens have much fewer polypes than old ones. 



" When irritated, the Pavonaria gives out a vivid blueish light, 

 which is brightest towards the tip. The light appears to come from 

 the bases of the polypes, and to be connected with the reproductive 



FAMILY GORGONIAD^E. 



CERATOPHYTES, Cuv. Reg. Anim. iii. 309. POLYPIERS CORTICIFERES, Lam. An. s. 

 Vert. ii. 288. GORGONIADJE, Flem. Brit. Aniin. 511. CERATOPHYTA CORTI- 

 COSA, Schweig. Handb. 432. CORALLIA, Blainv. Man. 501. CERATOCORALLIA 

 s. GORGONINA, Ehrenb. Corall. 133. CORALLIAD^E, J. E, Gray in Syn. Brit. 

 Mus. 135. 



19. GORGONIA,* Linnaeus. 



CHARACTER. Polype-mass rooted, arborescent, consisting of 

 a central axis larked with a polypiferous crust : the axis horny, 

 continuous and flexible, branched in coequality with the polype- 

 mass : the crust when recent soft and fleshy, when dried porous 

 and friable : the orifices of the polype-cells more or less protu- 

 berant. 



1. G. VERRUCOSA, somewhat fan-shaped, much and irregularly 

 branched, the branches cylindrical, flexuous, barked when dry 

 with a white warted crust : segments of the cells unequal, ob- 

 tuse. Cole.f 



PLATE XXXII. FIG. 1. 



Frutex marinus flabelliformis, Raii Hist. Plant, iii. 7. Sir H. Sloane in Phil. Trans, 

 abrid. (an. 1746) ix. 198, pi. 4, fig. 4. Keratophyton flabelliforme, cortice verru- 

 cosa obductum, Raii Syn. 32. Erica marina alba frutescens, Petiv. Mus. cent. 



* From Gorgon the name of a daughter of Phorcys, whose locks of hair were 

 changed into serpents by Minerva. 



t Ray, in his Historia, mentions Mr, afterwards Dr. Cole of Bristol, as the finder 

 of this zoophyte on the coast of Cornwall. Cole is well known to naturalists by his 

 ingenious enquiry into the purple liquor of the Purpura lapillus. 



