Miscellaneous, 77 



Note on a Variety (?) of Alcyonella fungosa. 

 To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



Gextlemex, — I have much pleasure in introducing to your notice 

 a variety, as I believe it to be, of the above species ; it grows in 

 large pyriform or fusiform masses, on twigs of bushes dipping just 

 below the surface of the water, in a pond about a mile from Exeter, 

 near the South-western Kailway. 



The polyzoon has from forty-eight to fifty tentacles, which are much 

 longer than those figured by Professor Allman. The ccenoecium is 

 repeatedly branched from the base upwards : the upper branches only 

 are free ; the lower portion is of a very tough, dark-brown, nearly 

 black, coriaceous substance, the upper or free portion thin and trans- 

 parent; and, instead of being smooth, these are wrinkled into a number 

 of transverse folds, the edges of which are frequently coloured brown. 

 Some of the apices of the ectocyst are nearly smooth, or with only 

 the rudiments of folds; and others, again, are rugged, and the 

 orifices widened and rolled back, so as to give them a sort of trumpet- 

 shaped mouth ; but they all have the brown annulations as above 

 mentioned. 



The apices of the ectocyst are emarginate or notched similarly to 

 those of A. Benedeni, but they have no appearance whatever of a 

 ridge or furrow. 



The statoblasts are of three kinds : — 1. Those with a rather broad 

 annulus, and the centre perforated with a rather large perforation, 

 the sides or edges of which are pressed into slight plaits or folds ; 

 these vary in colour from pale yellowish brown to a full rich brown ; 

 they are dotted with raised points, the same as in the type figured 

 by Professor Allman ; the annulus is reticulated the same. 2. With 

 a much broader outline, nearly orbicular, dark brown, and without 

 any perforation. 3. Forming a very broad ellipse, and with a com- 

 paratively very broad annulus ; this forms somewhat of an angle, 

 or point, at the long axis of the ellipse, nearly approaching the form 

 of the statoblast in Lophopus crystallinus ; but they are thicker and 

 more opaque than in that species. 



The above appear to be the principal difierences that I have been 

 able to observe in this variety or species. There is one more, however, 

 which may have some weight ; and that is the form of the tubes : 

 these are not round as in A. Benedeni, or pentangular as in A. fun- 

 gosa, but are intermediate between the two ; for when a section is 

 made of a mass of tubes at right angles to their length, they will be 

 seen to be irregular, the outside ones round, whilst those on the in- 

 side are from 3- to 4-, 5-, or 6-angular. 



This variety appears to me to be intermediate between A. fungosa 

 proper and A. Benedeni, as it seems to possess characters belonging 

 to both. Thus the round tubes and the emarginate mouth would 

 point to Benedeni ; whilst the subangular tubes and the mode of 

 growth and attachment, with the form of the staloblasts, point to 

 fungosa, leaving the remarkable rugose and annulose appearance of 

 the coenoecium peculiar to this variety. 



