LUCERNARID.E. 223 



in height, of a bell-shape, terminating in a sucker resembling the stand 

 of a stalked drinking-glass. The upper part is indented by eight short 

 processes or arms, stretching upward, and terminated by a delicate tuft 

 of a blossom-like appearance ; these, about sixty in number, are glands 

 or suckers, by which prey is caught. Its colours are various and rich. 

 The interior is hollow like a flower, in the centre of which a square 

 mouth is seen ; from this seems to spread four leaves, which add to the 

 beauty of the appearance. 



Dr. Johnston mentions in the British family of Lucernaria, L. fasci- 

 cularis and L. auricula; they differ but little from L. campanulata. 

 They propagate by ova, which are seen as two rows of spots in the arms 

 that extend around the mouth, 



Nearly allied to the family Actiniae, are those laminated, circular- 

 form corals, called Fungice, or Sea-Mushrooms (Plate V. No. 1). 

 They are found in great variety; are white, of a flattened round 

 shape, made up of thin plates or scales, around which is a translucent 

 jelly-like substance, and amidst it a large polyp ; for, unlike others, 

 they exist as individuals : the lower part is of a stony nature, by 

 which the animal is affixed to the rock whereon it lives. 



In Ellis's Zoophytes is the following passage, quoted from Kum- 

 phius in regard to the Fungia agariciformis : " The more elevated folds 

 or plaits have borders like the denticulated edge of needlework-lace. 

 These are covered with innumerable oblong vesicles, formed of a gela- 

 tinous substance, which appear alive under water, and may be observed 

 to move like an insect. I have observed these radiating folds of the 

 animal, which secrete the lamellae, and which shrink between them 

 when the animal contracts itself on being disturbed. They are con- 

 stantly moving in tremulous undulations ; but the vesicles appeared 

 to me to be air-vessels placed along the edges of the folds, and the 

 vesicles disappeared when the animal was touched." 



In the British Museum there is a splendid specimen of the Brain- 

 stone Coral, or Meandrina cerebriformis, so named by the appearance 

 of its surface resembling the convolutions of the medullary substance of 

 the human brain. In a living state the mass is invested with a fleshy 

 substance, variously coloured, and having numerous short, conical 

 polypiform, confluent cells, arranged in rows between the ridges. It 

 attaches itself by a strong stony secretion to rocks ; and as one genera- 

 tion passes away, on the shelly remains another arises; and thus the 

 imperishable charnel-houses are built upon and increased in magni- 

 tude. 



