VIRGULARIA MIRABILIS. 51 



PART III. 



VIRGULAKIA MIRABILIS. 



Lamarck. 



Of Virgulaiia mirabilis there were obtained — 



a. Seven liviu« specimens, varying in length from six to ten inches. 



b. Two bare stems, of three and six inches length respectively. 

 The specimens were dredged at four spots : (1) off Duuollie Castle 



(Station I. of the General Report of the Dredging Excursion) ; (2) mid- 

 way between Lismore Point and the mainland (Station III.) ; (3) the 

 southern end of Kerrera Sound (Station IV.) ; and (i) off Lismore 

 Point (Station VI.). In the first of these localities Virgulnria was 

 taken in company with Pennatula ; and in the second and fourth with 

 FunicuUna. In all four cases the depth was about twenty fathoms, 

 and the bottom mud. 



As with Pennatula and FunicuUna, so also with Virgularia, we have 

 foimd the existing descriptions and figures to be very incomplete and, 

 with few exceptions, inaccurate as well. English zoologists have 

 hitherto been specially culpable in this respect. Virgularia has long 

 been known to be abundant at many places along the Scotch coast, 

 and yet the stock figure of this genus given in English books at the 

 present day is not taken from a British specimen at all, but is copied 

 from a figure by O. F. Miiller in his " Zoologia Danica," published in 

 1776. This figure, the first ever published from a living specimen, and 

 which in its original form is imperfect and unsatisfactory, has been 

 copied and recopied, losing at each operation something of what 

 truthfulness it originally possessed, until it has culminated in the 

 absolutely unrecognisable travesty given in Gosse's "Marine Zoology," 

 or, worse still, in Nicholson's " Manual of Zoology," a drawing which a 

 moment's glance at an actual specimen would have shown to be 

 absolutely false. 



Partly in the hope of removing this national reproach, and partly 

 in the endeavour to utilise to the best advantage the specimens so 

 freely placed at our disposal by the Birmingham Natural History 

 Society, we have been led to attempt as complete a description of the 

 anatomy of Virgularia, as the imperfect histological preservation 

 of our material has permitted, and to illustrate our description by 

 figures drawn with the camera from the objects themselves. 

 General Account. 



In general appearance, as shown in Plate IV., Fig. I., Virgularia is 

 in many respects intermediate between FunicuUna and Pennatula ; for 



