62g ZOOPHYTES. 



branches, and at their summits. The species sometimes grows to a 

 length of fifteen or twenty inches, and is of crimson and orange 

 colours, and also white. The zoophytes are flexible throughout, and 

 they often hang from the rocks in the submarine caverns of the coral- 

 reefs. 



This genus was instituted by Lesson, and named from the Greek 

 avo-j'j'uSfi;, spongy. It is near Nephthya, and has been united to that 

 genus by Ehrenberg; but if the characters of the genus Nephthya 

 are correctly laid down, it differs in its retractile polyps, and armed 

 verrucce, and in not having the peculiar, open cellular texture of the 

 Spoggodise,* which separates them widely from all other Alcyonidae. 



1. SPOGGODIA CELOSU. 



S. albida, caule brevi et crasso, pluribus ramis partito, ramusculis poly- 

 pigeris cocdneis. 



White, stem short and stout, subdividing into several branches; 'the 

 polypiferous ramuscules crimson. 



One of the Moluccas, Bay of Cajeli, near New Guinea. Lesson. 



Spoggodes celosia, Lesson, Illust. de Zool., pi. 21. Lesson describes and figures the 

 internal cellular structure, and states, that in the trunk, which is an inch in diameter, 

 there are about twelve large cellules separated by thin partitions, radiating, though with 

 some irregularity. The spicula of the surface are long and slender. The polyps are 

 represented unexpanded, with the tentacles lying together, side by side. The trunk, in 

 his specimen, was an inch long, and then subdivided into several (four or five) large 

 branches. The ramuscules bearing the polyps, as represented, are two-thirds of an inch 

 long, and one-fourth thick. 



The Alcyonium floriduin, as figured by Esper (iii., tab. 16, page 49), is evidently a 

 species of this genus, figured from a dried specimen, in which state, owing to its open cel- 

 lular texture, it is wholly deprived of the characteristic form it presents when growing, as 

 the author has ascertained by observation. It is, therefore, difficult to say whether it be the 

 above species or not. Esper's specimen was received by him from Tranquebar. (See 

 under Nephthya, where Ehrenberg refers this figure ; also, Xenia puryntrea, Lamarck, 

 2d ed., ii. 626, No. 2, and 627 ; and Blainville, Man., Neptaa Jlorida, 523; also, Ale. 

 botryoides, Shaw's Miscel., x., pi. 376.) 



The following are the characters of specimens from the Feejees, probably identical 

 with the above. 



* The genus Nephthya is thus characterized by Ehrenberg: "Basi carnosa, ramulosa 

 aut fruticulosa, polypis in verrucas spiculis armatas retractilibus." 



