656 ZOOPHYTES. 



tered, except where the wing-like processes commence to grow from 

 the surface, and in that case they become lateral. 



Gorgoniaflabellitm, Linn., xii. 1293. , Lamour., Pol. flex. ,403; Encyc.,441. 



, Ellis and Sol., 92.F/abellum vene- , Blainville, Man., 505. 



ris, Ellis, Coral., tab. 26, fig. A. , Ehrcnb., G. Ix.xxiv., sp. 1. 



, Pallas, Zooph., 169. , Johnston's British Zoophytes, figure 



, Lamk., ii. 488, No. 1. p. 161 reduced drawing. 



GOHGONIA CLATHRUS (23). The Gorgonia clathrus, of Pallas, characterized by terete 

 branchlets, may be only a red variety of the flalx.llu.rn, and this view is strengthened by 

 their similarity of form, and by the occasional occurrence of red and yellow colours in 

 the same specimen. Yet in some specimens with terete branchlets, examined by the 

 author, the main branches are more regularly ascending than usual in the flabellum, and 

 the polyps are more or less seriate, with the medial line of the branchlets bare. The 

 cortex sometimes appears smooth, with even the oscules indistinct ; and again, a series of 

 granules (about eight to half an inch), range along each side of the medial space, as if 

 the surface were minutely verruculose. These different appearances arise from the dif- 

 ferent states of retraction in the polyps at the time the zoophytes were dried, the latter 

 condition being due to a partial retraction only. A yellowish-white specimen, of similar 

 character, without verrucse, but with the polyps in four series, belongs to the Nat. II 1st. 

 Society collections of Boston. (G. dathrus, Pallas, Zooph., 168; Lamarck, 2d ed.^ ii. 

 501, No. 35 h; Lamour., Pol. flex., 405; Encyc., 442.) 



24. GORGONIA. RETICULUM. (Pallas.) Lamarck. Red, much 

 branched, flabellate ; throughout reticulate, branchlets nearly terete, 

 decussately coalescent, obsoletely granulous. 



Indian Ocean. t 



Milne Edwards adds that the oscules are in some parts seriate, but 

 generally scattered. 



There is much confusion in the books with regard to the reticulum of Pallas. Pallas 

 (Elcnch. Zooph., 167) thus describes the species. " G. reticulata, ramulis creberrimis, 

 teretibus, cortice rubro verrucoso." The figure given by Esper (tab. 44) is reli-rred by 

 Lamarck to the fexuosa ; Ellis's reticulata is Lamarck's verriculata ; Ehrenberg's reti- 

 culum (Eunicea) is stated to correspond with Esper's tab. 44, but appears to l>c a dif- 

 ferent species, with free branchlets (" omnibus liberis"). Lamarck mentions Kspcr's tab. 

 1, Gorgonia ventalina, as possibly the reticulum. (See G. ventilabrum.) 



25. GORGONIA UMBELLA. (Esper.) Red; flabellate, sometimes 

 with the surfaces proliferous, height exceeding the breadth (twelve 

 inches by nine), finely reticulate, spaces two to two and a half lines 

 in area; branchlets subterete, nearly one line broad, irregularly 

 rough, and sometimes appearing a little contorted, owing to the scat- 

 tered verruca3, which are unequally prominent and minute (one- 

 fourth of a line) ; axis pale wood-brown. 



