ALCYONIDJ! : ALCYONIUM. 175 



24, tab. 3. fig. 6, 7. pessima. Main de mer, Jussieu in Mem. Acad. Roy. des. Sc. 

 an. 1742, 294, tab. 9, fig. 1. Dead Man's hand or Dead Man's toes, Ellis Corall. 

 83, no. 2, pi. 32, fig. a, A. A. 2. Alcyonium manus marina, Ellis in Phil. Trans, 

 liii. 431. tab. 20, fig. 10-13. A. digitatum, Lin. Syst. 1294. Mull. Zool. Dan. 

 prod. 255. Falmc. Faun. Grcenl. 447. Ellis and Soland. Zooph. 175, pi. 1, fig. 

 7. Jameson in Wern. Mem. i. 563. Fleming in Edin. Phil. Journ- ix. 251. Cuv. 

 Reg. Anim. iii. 321. Templeton in Mag. Nat. Hist. ix. 470. Harvey in ibid, 

 new series, i. 475, fig. 56. 57, (very inaccurate). Macgittivray in Ann. and Mag. 

 Nat. Hist. ix. 465. Couch Zooph. Cornw. 27 : Corn. Faun, iii, 58. pi. 13, fig. 2. 

 Alcyonium molle, Esper p. 56, tab. 18 B, fig. 1,2. (This represents the species as 

 it appears when it encrusts the tube of the Amphitrite.) Ale. lobatum, Pall. 

 Blench. 351. Lamour. Cor. Flex. 336, pi. 12, fig. 4, and pi. 13, fig. omn. Corall. 

 243, pi. 12, fig. 4 ; pi. 13, and pi. 14, fig. 1. Lobularia digitata, Lam. Anim. s. 

 Vert. ii. 413 : 2de edit. ii. 631. Flem. Brit. Anim. 515. Grant in Edin. Journ. 

 of Science, no. 15. Stark Elem. ii.421. Johnston m^rsae,. Newc.Soc.ii. 250, pi. 8. 

 Roget Bridgw. Treat, i. 162, fig. 56. Blainv. Actinol. 521. Ehrenb. Corall. 57. 

 Var. /3. orange-coloured. Alcyonium cydonium, Mull. Zool. Dan. iii. p. 1, tab. 81, 

 fig. 4, 5. Lobularia conoidea, Lam. Anim. s. Vert. 2de edit. ii. 632. (exc. syn. 

 plur.) Cydonium Mulleri, Couch Zooph. Cornw. 28. 



Hah. On stones, old shells, &c. in deep water. 



This is one of our most common marine productions, so that, on 

 many parts of the coast, scarce a shell or stone can be dredged from 

 the deep that does not serve as a support to one or more specimens. 

 It appears often in the form of a mere crust about the eighth of an 

 inch in thickness, but more commonly it rises up in conoid masses of 

 various sizes and lobed in a very irregular manner. Sometimes the 

 polypidom is a simple obtuse process, very much resembling the 

 teat of a cow's udder, whence our fishermen have happily named it 

 Cow's-paps : other polypidoms are more or less divided into finger- 

 like lobes, and assume figures that have suggested the names of Dead 

 Man's toes or Dead Mans hands. The outer skin is tough and 

 coriaceous, studded all over with stellate figures which, if attentively 

 examined, are seen to be divided into eight rays, indicating the 

 number of the tentacula of the polypes, which issue here. The body 

 of the polypes is as it were enclosed in a transparent vesicular mem- 

 brane, dotted with many minute calcareous grains, and marked with 

 eight white longitudinal lines or septa which, stretching between the 

 membrane and the central stomach, divide the intermediate space 

 into an equal number of compartments. These lines not only extend 

 to the base of the tentacula, but run across the oral disk, and termi- 

 nate in the central mouth. The tentacula are short, obtuse, ciliated 

 on the margins, and strengthened at their roots by numerous linear 

 straight crystalline spicula. From the base of the white longitudi- 

 nal lines an equal number of white tortuous glandular filaments de- 



