and the tentacle bases are beset with spicules. The spicules are almost always girdled forms, 

 i. e. with a median band which is bare of verrucse, and hence appear to have an impressed 

 girdle. This results in the formation of double heads, double clubs, double spindles, double 

 stars, etc. ; and these forms are quite characteristic of the Gorgonellidae, although not strictly 



confined to this family. 



Dichromatism is exhibited in a marked degree, a number of species of Juncella and 

 Scipearella being characterized by having two color phases, red and white, which do not 

 appear to be corellated with sex or age. 



The systematic arrangement of this family offers great difficulties, as is apt to be the 

 case with forms which have been long known. The original descriptions are entirely inadequate, 

 and it is usually impracticable to decide just what forms the authors had before them. None 

 of them paid any attention to the feature that has later been found of prime importance in 

 generic definitions, e. g. the spicules, and confined themselves almost exclusively to general 

 habit, mode of branching, etc., features of almost no generic import whatever. Subsequent 

 writers have very generally neglected the discussion of the genera in any broad way. 



MILNE EDWARDS and HAIME (1857) recognize 1 the four genera Juncella, Ctenocella, 

 Gorgonella and Verrucella, which they separated by modes of branching and character of the 

 calyces. Kolliker (1865) was the first to thoroughly investigate the spicules of this family, and 

 he recognized the genera Gorgonella, Juncella and Verrucella; but included the genus Riisea 

 of DUCHASSAING and MICHELOTTI, which appears to belong to the family Chrysogorgidae. He 

 includes the genus Ctenocella in his genus Gorgonella. 



GRAY (1870) divides the genus Juncella into the three genera Juncella, Ellisella and Vime- 

 nella and restores the genus Scirpearea. He established the genera Nicella, Reticella, Raynerella, 

 Phenella and Heliana. Two of these, Reticella and Raynerella, appear to belong to Gorgonella. 

 STUDER, (1878) discusses and further defines the genera Gorgonella, Juncella, Ellisella, 

 Ctenocella and Scirpearella; and in 1887 the same writer gives a careful discussion of the 

 genera of this family, defining according to modern methods the following genera : Nicella, 

 Scirpearea, Juncella, Ellisella, Verrucella, Gorgonella, Ctenocella, Phenelia and Heliana. The 

 last two of these genera he defines after GRAY without giving the spicule characters which are 

 absolutely necessary for modern definition. This treatment is the most satisfactory that has yet 

 been presented, and the generic definitions here given are very largely adopted without essential 

 modification by the present writer. 



The last general treatment of the family Gorgonellidae as a whole is found in WRIGHT and 

 STUDER'S Challenger Report, Alcyonaria, 1889, p. 153, where the definitions of STUDER, as just 

 discussed, are practically adopted in their entirety. They add, however, one genus, Scirpearella 

 and throw doubt on the identity and validity of the old genus Scirpearea of CUVIER, quoting 

 the discussion of Scirpearea mirabilis by KOLLIKER J who shows that the name was originally 

 used for a pennatulid. 



THOMSON and SIMPSON, in their excellent monograph of the Alcyonaria secured by the 



1 Anat.-Syst. Beschr. der Alcyonarien, Die Pennaluliden, 1872, p. 26. 



