122 Rev. Canon Xornian. — A Month on 



and exhibited by tlie members of a colony, wlio determine to 

 erect their building after a special and prearranged plan. 

 This is no case of inherited instinct which prompts the 

 members of a family to act together to build as their fathers 

 built ; but the founder of a colony settles the course she will 

 adopt, and this determination, it would seem, must somehow 

 be communicated by means of the colonial nervous system, 

 and be acted upon by all the descendants to whom she gives 

 birth by gemmation. Natural selection cannot account for 

 this. A very difficult problem is here presented to us. We 

 cannot appeal to vast periods of time. We see enormous 

 changes brought about apparently at the will of individuals, 

 who, building colonies after the various fashions characteristic 

 of a large number of genera belonging to the same class as 

 themselves, simulate the general forms of a Membranipora, a 

 Hippofhoa, a Carhasea, a Flustra, a Cellar ia, a Gemellariuj 

 and a Eucratea *. 



Bugula Murrayana is another species given to " sports." 

 The Menipea fruticosa, Packard (= Cellularia quadridentatcij 

 Lov^n), has been of ten regarded as a distinct species, differing 

 from the type in its narrower fronds, fewer spines, and 

 absence of large lateral avicularia ; but the reason I refer to 

 this species is not on account of that variety, but because it 

 also is known to take on a Eucratea-V[ke form, composed of a 

 line of single cells. This curious variation is tigured by 

 Smitt (pi. xviii. fig. 27), and I have also myself met with it. 



I have used the word " sports " advisedly in the preceding 

 sentence, because the remarkable variations of Electra pilosa 

 seem to tind a parallel in the " sports " of plants. 



Genus Kamphonotus *, gen. no v. 



The zcoecia, if developed freely in form, remind us of those 

 of Electra^ being turbinate, with a calcareous part postex'ior 



* It has been argued by recent writers that the form which the colony 

 of a polyzoou belonging to the Cheilostoiuata assumes is of no moment in 

 generic character. Electra pilosa lends strong support to this view. 

 Yet it is a view nevertheless in which 1 am not prepared in all cases to 

 acquiesce. The zoa?ciid chiu-acters are unquestionably all importimt, but 

 no lasting chissitication can be based on imy one part nf the zocecium, 

 whether it be the mouth-opening, wall, rosette-plates, or anything else. 

 Why lUso in all instances is the ultimate growth and form of the zoarium 

 to be excluded from generic character among certain families of tlie Chei- 

 lostomata, and at the s.ame time to bt> recognized amnug the Cydoslo- 

 mata and Ctenostomata, and even other groups of tlie Cheilostomata h 

 This is surely scarcely consistent. In some instances, ivs, for example, 

 Etictra pilosa, the form of the colony is of no generic or specitic value, 

 but in other ca;?es it may be and, I believe, is. 



* 'PiifKpoi, a bird's beak, luid varos, the back. 



