LOBSTER-HORN CORALLINE. 277 



portion of its produce yet remains in buckets and pans, 

 waiting for a further overhauling ; and it will doubtless 

 yield us some objects worthy of an hour or two's inves- 

 tigation. 



The first thing that our fingers pull up is a great 

 tangled group of Sertularian Hydrozoa, of which the 

 finest part consists of some half-dozen stems of Anten- 

 nularia, called, from obvious resemblance, the Lobster- 

 horn Coralline. 1 These are nearly straight, somewhat 

 stiff, unbranched stems, a foot or more in length, with 

 an uniform thickness of about a line, of a buff-yellow 

 hue, closely divided into short joints. Each of the 

 joints gives origin to a whorl of very delicate bristles, 

 giving a hairy appearance to the whole affair, but which 

 under magnifying power are discerned to be colourless, 

 jointed filaments, bearing on the inner shoulder of each 

 joint a tiny glassy cup (hydrotheca), within which re- 

 sides a minute many-tentacled polype. The stems 

 spring in close groups from an obscure root-mass of 

 tangled threads, which cling to stones and shells, and 

 afford a mooring to the Lobster-horn, which in its turn 

 affords support to miniature forests of other Hydrozoa, 

 slenderer than the finest hair Laomedea, Campanularia, 

 etc., which crowd together on it, especially around the 



1 Antennularia antennina, figured in Plate xxxi., springing from the 

 lower left corner. It will be easily recognised from the description. 



