4 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1785. 



the reef of coral was found ^n infinite number of large pieces of brain-stone, 

 containing the shell of this animal ; but the animals had either been long dead, 

 or more probably destroyed by the motion of the rocks in the storm : some few 

 of the brain-stones, however, that had been thrown beyond the reef, and lodged 

 in the shoal water, receiving less injury, the animals were preserved unhurt. 

 The animal, with the shell, was almost entirely inclosed in the brain-stone, so 

 that at the depth in which they generally lie, they are hardly discernible, through 

 the water, from the common surface of the brain-stone ; but when in search of 

 food they throw out two cones, with membranes twisted round them in a spiral 

 manner, which have a loose fringed edge, looking at the bottom of the sea like 

 two flowers ; and in this state they were discovered. The animal, when taken 

 out of the shell, including the two cones and their membranes, is 5 inches in 

 length ; of which the body is 3-| inches, and the apparatus for catching its prey, 

 which may be considered as its tentacula, about an inch and a quarter. 



The body of the animal is attached to its shell, for about 4 of an inch in 

 length, at the anterior part where the two cones arise, by means of two cartilagi- 

 nous substances, with one side adapted to the body of the animal, the other to 

 the internal surface of the shell : the rest of the body is unattached, of a 

 darkish white colour, about half an inch broad, a little flattened, and rather 

 narrower towards the tail. The muscular fibres on its back are transverse; 

 those on the belly longitudinal, making a band the whole length of the body, 

 on the edge of which the transverse fibres running across the back terminate. 

 The two cartilaginous substances by which the animal adheres to its shell, are 

 placed one on each side of the body, and are joined together on the back of the 

 animal at their posterior edges : they are about -f of an inch long, are very 

 narrow at their anterior end, becoming broader as they go backwards ; and at 

 their posterior end they are the whole breadth of the body of the animal. On 

 their external surface there are 6 transverse ridges, or narrow folds ; and along 

 iheir external edges, at the end or termination of each ridge, is a little eminence 

 resembling the point of a hair pencil, so that on each side of the animal there 

 are 6 of these little projecting studs, for the purpose of adhering to the sides of 

 the shell in which the animal is inclosed. The internal surfaces of these carti- 

 lages are firmly attached to the body of the animal, in their middle part, by a 

 kind of band or ligament ; but the upper and lower ends are lying loose. 



From the end of the body, between the two upper ends of these cartilages, 

 arise what he supposes to be the tentacula, consisting of 2 cones, each having 

 a spiral membrane, twining round it : they are close to each other at their bases, 

 and diverge as they rise up, being about an inch and a quarter in length, and 

 nearly -^ of an inch in thickness at their base, and gradually diminishing till they 

 terminate in points. The membranes which twine round these cones also take 



