Mr. P. H. Gosse on Peachia hastata. 293 



spiral is greatest in the lower part of the stem, diminishing as the 

 stem expands laterally, and again increasing towards the upper part, 

 where the stem resumes its cylindrical form. When the course of 

 the fibres is traced from the base of any of the branches, the spiral 

 wall be found to terminate about the base of the second branch 

 above that from which the Une started. If each turn of the spiral, 

 in this abnormal specimen, be considered to represent an internode, 

 then the opposite and alternate arrangement of the branches of a 

 Dipsacus would seem to be indicated. Should this view be correct, 

 it would have an important bearing on that theory whicb ascribes 

 the opposition of leaves to the absence or non-development of in- 

 ternodes, for here, where the internodes are developed, the arrange- 

 ment is alternate. The position of all the branches in a line one 

 over the other is accounted for by the spiral course of the fibres of 

 the stem. And thus, if we conceive the fibres of this specimen un- 

 twisted and made to assume a vertical direction, and at the same 

 time imagine the absence of internodes, the result will be the oppo- 

 sition of the branches and the alternate position of the pairs of 

 branches as regards the side of the axis from which they proceed. At 

 the dilated portion of the stem the growth was probably much more 

 rapid than at the lower part, which, from its more sohd and firmer 

 structure, may be conceived to have offered some resistance to the 

 lateral expansion of the stem. In so doing it may have been the 

 cause of that twisting of the stem upon itself, which, it will be 

 observed, begins at the point where the change of form also com- 

 mences." 



The communication was accompanied by a sketch of the monstro- 

 sity described in it. 



March 20. — Thomas Bell, Esq., President, in the Chair. 



Read a " Description of Peachia hastata, a new genus and species 

 of the Class Zoophyta ; with observations on the Family Actiniuda:' 

 By Philip Henry Gosse, Esq., A.L.S. 



The specimens on which Mr. Gosse founds his new genus, Peachia, 

 were discovered by the Rev. Charles Kingsley in the months of 

 January and March 1854, in the vicinity of Torquay. Mr. Gosse 

 gives an elaborate description of the animal, both in reference to its 

 external and internal structure, together with a particular account 

 of its habits, derived from the communications of Mr. Kingsley as 

 well as from his own observations. He considers that the possession 

 of an excretory orifice to the body is a character of sufiicient im- 

 portance to separate it from Actinia, and to constitute a new genus, 

 for which he proposes the name of Peachia, as a tribute to the zeal, 

 industry and success with which marine zoology has been studied 

 by Mr. Charles W. Peach. He is also led to this selection of a 

 name, because he thinks it probable that a minute species, described 

 by Mr. Peach under the name oi Actinia chrysanthellum, may belong 

 to the same genus. The following are the characters, generic and 

 specific, of the animals in question : — 



