THE 



PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS 



OP THE ^ 



ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON; 



ABRIDGED. 



XVII. /description of a New * Marine Animal. In a Letter from Mr. Everard 

 Home, to John Hunter, Esq., F. R. S. With a Postscript by Mr. Hunter, 

 containing Anatomical Remarks on the same. Dated Sept. 20, 1784. p. 333. 

 About 3 years before Mr. H. sent this sea animal from Barbadoes, which was 

 unlike any one he had ever seen. And even after his arrival in England, his in- 

 quiries concerning it had been without success. The specimen sent was found 

 on a part of the coast which had undergone very remarkable changes, in conse- 

 quence of a violent hurricane. These changes were indeed the means of its 

 being discovered, and present a probable reason why it was not discovered before. 

 The animal was found on the south-east coast of Barbadoes, close to Charles 

 Fort, about a mile from Bridge Town, in some shoal water, separated from the 

 sea by the stones and sand thrown up by the dreadful hurricane, which hap- 

 pened in the year 1780, and did so much mischief to the island. The wind, in 

 the beginning of the storm, which was in the afternoon, blew very furiously 

 from the north-west, making a prodigious swell in the sea ; and in the middle of 

 the night changing suddenly to the south-east, it blew from that quarter on the 

 sea, already agitated, forcing it on the shore with so much violence, that it 

 threw down the rampart of Fort Charles, which was opposed to it, though 30 

 feet broad, by the bursting of one sea. It forced up, at the same time, im- 

 mense quantities of large coral rocks from the bottom of the bay, making a 

 reef along this part of the coast for the extent of several miles, at only a few 

 yards distance from the shore. 



The soundings of the harbour were found afterwards to be entirely changed, 

 by the quantity of materials removed from the bottom in different places. In 



* This animal seems greatiy allied to the Serpula gigantea of Linneus and PalJas, and which has 

 sometimes been found on our own coasts^ and is described, in the 7th vol. of the Linnean Transac- 

 tions, by Col. Montagu, under the name of Amphitrite volutacornis. 

 VOL. XVI. B 



