168 ANTHOZOA ASTEROIDA. 



2. G. PINNATA, branched and pinnated, the branches com- 

 pressed ; polype-cells in regular rows on each margin, mam- 

 milate, unarmed. E. Forbes. 



PLATE XXXIII. Fig. 13. 



Gorgonia pinnate, Lin. Syst. edit, x, 802. Lin. Syst. 1292. Mull Zool. Dan. prod. 

 254. Ellis and Soland Zooph. 87, tab. 14, fig. 3. Rathke in Mull. Zool- Dan. iv. 

 37, tab. 153. 



Hah. Attached to stones in thirty fathoms, in the Sound of Skye, 

 Mr. MacAndrew and E. Forbes. 



Polypidom arising from the centre of a thin circular corneous base, 

 four inches and upwards in height, sparingly branched, slender and 

 flexile, the branches irregular, compressed, a very little enlarged at 

 the extremity : axis horny, filiform, of the thickness of sewing 

 thread, smooth, blackish on the lower part, but becoming paler up- 

 wards, and almost yellow towards the apices : crust cretaceous, friable 

 and easily separating from the axis, dull white, mealy, from a line to 

 one- eighth in thickness, rendered almost moniliform or beaded by 

 its thinness or constriction between the polype-cells : these are placed 

 in a row along each side, obtusely mammillate, smooth, with an octo- 

 radiated aperture. 



This description is made from a dried specimen presented to me by 

 Professor E. Forbes. 



" When taken alive it was of a cream-white colour. The polypes 

 are white, with eight dull white granular pinnated tentacula : they 

 are very sluggish, and did not expand." E. Forbes. 



The specific name is inapplicable to it, and I have quoted few 

 synonymes from a suspicion that the pinnated branchy specimens from 

 the tropical seas may possibly be of a different species. Certainly, 

 however, the figure of the latter in Ellis' work gives a good idea of 

 even our dwarfed and scarcely ramous denizen of the Scottish coasts, 

 when regard is had only to the form and structure of an individual 

 branch, and the habit of the whole is kept out of view. 



Professor Forbes has suggested (and the suggestion is probably 

 true), that this may be the Gorgonia viminalis, which is said by 

 Dr. Walker to occur in Scotland ; (Wern. Mem. i. 560.) and which 

 Mr. Sowerby says he had also received from that part of our island. 



3. Gr. PLACOMUS, irregularly branched, the branches disposed 

 in a dichotomous order and a flattish form, cylindrical, warty ; 

 cells protuberant, conical, surrounded at top by little spines. 

 Ellis. 



