AMPHITEITE. 251 



It is difficult to offer any intelligible description of this product, 

 farther than in saying it consists of a congeries of innumerable slender 

 filaments, united in irregular bundles, or fasciculi, forming altogether 

 something like filigree work. The mass is penetrated by numerous deep 

 cavities, of indeterminate size and form. The fasciculi are so disposed 

 that the orifices of all the tubes are directed outwards, and many clusters 

 of them advance beyond the circumference or outline of the product. 



A specimen resembled a quantity of the most luxuriant moss, which 

 might have been covered by a hollow spherical segment, above three 

 inches in diameter and two and a half in depth. Another specimen was 

 infinitely larger, in general form an ellipsoid, above seven inches long, 

 six broad, and four thick. The whole bounded by curves : there were 

 no angles. Cavities of all different dimensions penetrated this substance. 

 The surface, especially the circumference, universally in obtuse promi- 

 nences, so that the specimen resembled a piece of rich carving. Here 

 the myriads of tubes exceeded calculation. 



The specimen represented Plate XXXIV. fig. 1. was nearly four 

 inches high, above three broad, and two inches thick. It seemed to 

 have been formed from the smaller portion or root upwards, and it was 

 of the same irregularity as any of the others. 



The tubes are always very slender and intricately interwoven : none 

 have exceeded seven lines in length at most, and some are as slender as 

 a coarse horse hair. 



The animals display themselves in great numbers from the orifices 

 of the tubes ; but they seem delicate, as many fall from their site like 

 the animals of certain Ascidian Zoophytes. Then they are seen to be of 

 unequal size, the body of some being quite as slender as a horse hair, to 

 which the smaller tubes have been already compared. 



None have survived above fifteen days. The whole product is 

 dingy white ; the animal grey. It is less symmetrical than the Am- 

 phitrite. 



This substance oceurs in deep water. 



