Dr. J. E. Gray on Elachista stellaris. 401 



varice externo forti. Operculum normale ; costa interna ad am- 



bas extremitates torta. 

 Long. 7, diam. vix 3 mill. ; ap. 2| mill, longa, 1| lata. 

 Habitat Bombay. 



Some specimens are smaller than the above : one with only 

 five whorls remaining (one, at least, having been lost by ero- 

 sion) measures only 5 millimetres in length by 2 in diameter. 



The specimens found by myself were living on mud between 

 tide-marks on the shore of Bombay Harbour. I believe Dr. 

 Leith's and Mr. Fairbank's specimens were from the same 

 locality. The principal Mollusca associated with them were 

 species of Assimmeaj Haminea^ and Amjpullarina, 



L. — On Elachista stellaris, a Seaweed new to the British 

 Flora. By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.K.S., Y.P.Z.S., &c. 



Mrs. Alfred Gatty has submitted to my examination some 

 specimens, and some very accurate pen-and-ink sketches, of 

 a species of Elachista which she regards as different from 

 any that has hitherto been described as inhabiting the English 

 coast. Mrs. A. Gatty discovered it growing on Arthrocladia 

 on the Cardigan-Bay side of the Carnarvonshire promontory, 

 at Pwllheli, and four miles further west at Llandwrog. 



At first I thought that it might be the long-sought-for E. 

 curta of Dillwyn in a more perfect condition, a plant that has 

 not been recognized on the English coast for the last fifty 

 years. On careful comparison with the description in Agardh's 

 ' Species, Genera et Ordines Algarum ' (vol. i. p. 9) there was 

 no doubt that it is the Elachista stellaris of Areschoug's 

 ^ Dried Scandinavian Algae' (part 3. no. 71), described in his 

 paper in the ^ Linnaea,' xvi. p. 233. 



Elachista stellaris is known from all the other species of the 

 genus by the filaments being nearly simple, radiating from a 

 small, dense, hemispherical tubercle; the threads are rather 

 narrowed below, and very much attenuated and produced into 

 a long slender tip above ; the joints of the lower part of the 

 thread are as wide as long, and of the upper part two or three 

 times as long as wide ; the spore is oval, shortly pedicelled. 



Dillwyn, in his ^ British Confervse,' described and figured a 

 species under the name of Conferva curta (t. 76), which he 

 says is not uncommon at Swansea. Knowing that Mrs. Story 

 Maskelyne had the whole or part of her grandfather's collec- 

 tion, I wrote to her, requesting that I might be allowed to 

 examine one of Mr. Dillwyn's original specimens ; but, unfor- 

 tunately, the part of the collection that she possesses does not 



