Prof. G. J. Allman’s Biological Contributions. 417 
LI.—-Biological Contributions. By Groner J. Autman, M.B., 
F.R.C.S.1., M.R.1.A., Professor of Botany in Trinity College, 
Dublin, late Demonstrator of Anatomy and Conservator of the 
Anatomical Museum, T.C.D. 
[ With a Plate. ] 
No. I. Description of a new genus of Helianthoid Zoophytes. 
Av the York Meeting of the British Association in September 
1844, I read before the Natural History Section a description of 
a Helianthoid Zoophyte which I had just discovered on the Irish 
coast. The subject of the communication I believed to possess a 
form generically distinct from all hitherto described, but not ha- 
ving been able since its discovery to procure the works necessary 
to establish this point with certainty, I refrained at the time from 
naming it. Since then however I have convinced myself of its 
claims to a new generic rank, whose limits may be assigned by 
the following characters :-— 
CorRYNACTIS. 
Gen. Cuan. Body subcylindrical but very mutable in figure, 
adhering by an expanded base. Tentacula capitate, contractile, 
surrounding the mouth in one or more concentric series*. 
Species unica, C. viridis. Pl. XI. 
Hab. Near low water mark in the pools left by the retiring 
tide, Crook Haven, co. Cork ; coast of Cornwall, Mr. Peach +. 
This beautiful little zoophyte measures about half an inch 
across the tentacular disc, which, as well as the body, is of a 
bright grass-green, with the exception of a circle of radiating 
brown strize which surround the mouth at a short distance from 
its margin. The tentacula are short, the stems of a siena colour, 
and the capitate extremities of a bright rose colour. Those ten- 
tacula which lie near the margin of the disc are arranged in two 
regular concentric circles, and are succeeded towards the mouth 
by others which are for the most part smaller and present a more 
scattered disposition. 
There is a variety by no means uncommon, in which the green 
colour, except in a narrow ring at the upper margin of the body, 
is entirely replaced by a light flesh colour. In this variety the 
animal becomes so translucent, that the septa and vermiform fila- 
ments may often be distinguished through the integuments; it 
is an evident example of albinism. 
* From xopvvn, a club, and dxris, a ray. 
+ At the Cambridge Meeting of the British Association in June 1845, 
Mr. Peach exhibited drawings of a Zoophyte found by him on the Cornish 
coast, and undoubtedly referable to the species here described. 
