Alcyonoid Corals in the British Museum. 443 



of Ammothea ; but he does not point out the inconsistency of 

 Savigny's beautiful figures with his generic character. 



MM. Milne-Edwards and Haime, in the ^ Coralliaires,' 

 have ipiiaced Ammothea w4tli the " Alcyoniens nus " and Neph- 

 thya with the "Alcyoniens arm^s ;" yet, as has been pointed 

 out by MM. Duchassaing and Michelotti (Coral, des Antilles, 

 p. 9), they seem to be only synonyms of the same genus. 

 Probably these authors were misled by Prof. Ehrenberg's 

 characters of the genera above quoted. 



FiLIGELLA. 



Coral free, filiform, simple, slender, rather rigid. Bark 

 thin, transparent, formed of a single series of flattened, sub- 

 fusiform, elongate spicules placed close together side by side, 

 forming a hard coat ; ends blunt, ovate, covered with spicules 

 like the stem. The axis hornlike, slender, cylindrical. Po- 

 lype-cells short, broad, conical, very far apart, those next 

 each other being on different sides of the stem, forming a sub- 

 spiral series covered with a single series of close spicules like 

 the bark. The cells near each end of the coral are very much 

 alike, and the ends of the coral very similar and covered with 

 spicules ; but there does not appear to be any opening for the 

 polype : they are probably the buds by which the coral grows 

 in length. 



How the coral lives I am not able to divine. There is no 

 appearance of either of the ends being sunk in the sand ; and 

 there is no expanded disk, which is universal in the group to 

 which it belongs. It must live erect, or nearly so ; for the 

 polypes are placed equally on all sides of the axis. Can it 

 climb among the branches of zoophytes or corals ? 



The specimens of this Gorgonoid coral I found among some 

 Pennatulce dredged up from off Cape Frio, near Rio de Janeiro. 

 It is curious as being simple, thread-like, unbranched, and 

 rounded off at each end ; so that it must have been free. It is 

 covered with a single regularly disposed series of small, fusi- 

 form, flattened spicules, closely applied to each other. There 

 are a small number of very distant, short, broad, conical 

 polype-cells, which are also covered with a single series of 

 spicules. One of these cells is near each end, and it and the 

 end of the coral are covered with spicules like the rest of the 

 stem. 



In the structure of the bark and the form and disposition of 

 the polype-cells it is very much like the genus Acis^ de- 

 scribed and figured by Duchassaing and Michelotti (Coral, 

 des Antilles, p. 19, 1. 1. f. 14,15) ; but it differs from that genus 

 in being unbranched and free. 



31* 



