354 Mr. J. Alder 07i some new genera and species 



Only one specimen has yet occurred to me of this very inter- 

 esting little zoo])hyte, which may readily escape observation on 

 account of its diminutive size. It was observed on a branch of 

 Corallina officinalis that had remained for a while in a glass of sea- 

 water, in the autumn of 1853. The pools where it was obtained 

 have been searched several times since for additional specimens, 

 but without success. I am happy, however, to find that the spe- 

 cies was also found by Mr. Busk, in the same year, at Felixstowe in 

 Suffolk. The Cullercoats specimen, which lived with me several 

 days, showed little animation, holding itself always in a curved 

 position as represented in fig. 2. The mouth is tubular and 

 prominent. The upper tentacles, which surround the mouth, 

 are short and generally curved inwards ; their enlarged heads 

 showing, when highly magnified, a congeries of little tubercles, 

 which probably contain thread cells. The lower tentacles form 

 a radiating circle near the base of the head. 



Mr. Peach has described^ in the ' Annals of Natural History ' 

 for August last, the change of a zoophyte somewhat similar 

 to this into a naked-eyed Medusa. That gentleman^s obser- 

 vations led him to conclude that the change was a complete 

 metamorphosis, and not a reproduction by gemmation as is 

 usually the case, though the exact point of transition does not 

 appear to have been observed. 



Names given to genera in this family must be considered pro- 

 visional and subject to revision, should the Zoophytes afterwards 

 prove to be the transition-state of something already known. 

 At present this genus has as good a claim to recognition as 

 Clara and some of its nearest allies. 



Family Tubulariada. 

 Eudendrium confertum, n. sp. PI. XII. figs. 5-8. 



Polype white or pale flesh-coloured, with a lougish ovate head, 

 surrounded by a single row of tentacles. Polypary consisting 

 of short crowded stems rising from a common base ; they are 

 tubular, yellowish horn-coloured, strongly wrinkled across but 

 not annulated, slightly branched, and expanding a little 

 towards the apertures: base a densely reticulated and closely 

 adhering crust, the interstices filled up by a membrane. 



Height I to ^ inch. 



On old shells of Buccinum undatum and Fusus antiquus from 

 deep water, Cullercoats. 



This little zoophyte appears to have been first noticed by 

 Dr. Johnston, though he had subsequently overlooked or for- 

 gotten it, as when 1 sent him a description of a specimen got at 



