GORGONIAD^E : GORGOMA. 167 



prim. 9, no. 50. Lithophyte second, 3 and 8, Mars. Hist. Phys. de la Mer, p. 

 93, pi. 17, fig. 81 ; p. 96, pi. 18, fig. 82 ; p. 104, pi. 21, fig. 97 100. Warted 

 Sea-fan, Borl. Cornw. 238, tab. 24, fig. 1. Gorgonia verrucosa, Lin. Syst. 1291. 

 Pall. Elench. 196. Ellis and Soland. Zooph. 89. Esper Pflanz. Gorg. tab. 16, 

 fig. 1, 2. Cavol Polyp, mar. 29, tav. 1, fig. 1-11, and tav. 4, fig. 1-16. Lam. 

 Anim. s. Vert. 2de edit. ii. 491. Lamarck in Mem. du Mus. ii. 82. Flem. 

 Brit. Anim. 512. D. Chiaie Anim. s. Vert. Nap. iii, 24 and 27. tav. 33, fig. 4-7. 

 Couch Zooph. Cornw. 26 : Corn. Faun. iii. 56, pi. 12, fig. 1. Gorg. viminalis, 

 Sower. Brit. Misc. 81, pi. 40. Eunices verrucosa, Ehrenb. Corall. 136. 



Hob. Deep water. "Mount's Bay in Cornwall," Mr. Batten. 

 " Abundant along the whole of the south coast," Couch. Plentiful 

 on the Devonshire coast, Montagu. 



Polype-mass more than twelve inches in height, and fifteen or 

 seventeen in breadth, fixed to rocks by a broad circular fibro-corneous 

 disk, shrub-like, branched from near the base, the branches expanded 

 laterally, sometimes bushy, cylindrical, erect or erecto-patent, warty. 

 Axis black, smooth and somewhat glossy, round or a little com- 

 pressed, compact and corneous, with a snow-white pith in the centre, 

 irregularly cellular and very like the pith of a rush ; near the extre- 

 mities of the branches the axis appears to be a single tube striated 

 longitudinally, but this appearance is produced by drying, for when 

 steeped in water the striae are removed ; it is often bulged or 

 knotted at uncertain intervals, but no pores can be detected in its 

 parietes. Crust, in dried specimens, white, cretaceous, friable, warted, 

 with numerous polype-cells and wrinkled in the small spaces between 

 them ; thickest towards the ends of the branches which it covers 

 over. " When living, the external fleshy crust is soft, and of a flesh 

 tint." Cells partly filled with a yellowish fibrous substance being the 

 remains of the polypes, their orifices closed with eight converging 

 obtuse small segments, one of which is so much larger than the 

 others as to occupy a half or a third of the whole circumference. 



Of Gorgonia verrucosa and viminalis, Mr. Couch says : " Hav- 

 ing specimens of both marked by Mr. Sowerby, I have been enabled 

 to examine them under very favourable circumstances. Having 

 compared together upwards of seventy specimens of each, of all 

 sizes, I am inclined to agree with Fleming and Johnston, that they 

 are but variations of the same species." The Gorgowa viminalis 

 of Pallas (Esper, Gorg. tab. 11.) is a very different species, although 

 the variety represented in Esper's plate, 11 A. has a great resem- 

 blance to Gorg. verrucosa. 



Mr. Couch has given many interesting particulars of this species, 

 for which I must refer the naturalist to his valuable Cornish Fauna. 



