1901] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 19 
Extracts From English Postal Microscopical 
Society Note Books. 
WILLIAM H. BURBIDGE. 
Polyp of Alcyonium palmatum. One of the Anthozoa, 
is of a higher organization than Hydroida. Itis the cream 
colored, fleshy substance commonly called dead men’s fin- 
gers. The protruded polyp is an elevated tubular column 
of translucent substance terminating in an expanded flow- 
er of eight slender-pointed petals—the tentacles of the 
polyp. “The spicules in this creature are of interest, be- 
ing of varying forms. In Alcyonium the sexes are sep- 
arate, and even the sexes of different colonies are dis- 
tinct. In any one commonwealth the individuals are 
either all males or else all female8. 
The ova and sperm masses are borne on stalked cap- 
sules upon the free edges of the mesentaries, or straight 
bands that run down the tube below the curled up fila- 
ments,and development takes place outside the parent. 
The embryos are free, swimming by cilia. They soon 
fix themselves and by continued budding produce colo- 
nies.” (Hornell.) 
STALKED LARVA OF ANTEDON.—This is better known 
by the name of Comatula Rosacea, or ‘‘feather-star.” Mr. 
Hornell, in his ‘Journal of Marine Zoology,” describes 
the delight with which he first pulled up, ona lobster-pot, 
a colony of this most lovely of, star-fishes. Ican also re- 
call a red-letter day long ago when I pulled up ina dredge 
a mass of these beauties in Tar bay, one of the greatest 
prizes, I think, round our English coast. Its body con- 
sists of a disc some half inch across, from which proceed 
ten long slender arms, bearing numerous pinnules on 
either side. These often reach 34 inches, so that the crea- 
ture has a span of 7 inches. | 
The sexes are separate, and the genital organs are situ- 
ated not in the body disc, but in the tiny pinnules of the 
