52 REPORT ON THE PENNATULIDA. 



wliile it has the slender shape and proportions of the former {cf. Plate I., 

 Fig. 1.), it agrees with the latter in that the polypes, instead of being 

 inserted separately and independently into the rachis, are fused 

 together so as to form leaves (cf. Plate III., Fig. 1). 



As in the other two genera, so also in Virfiularia, we distinguish a 

 cylindrical axial portion travei'sed by a central calcified stem, and 

 divisible into an upper part, the rachis (Fig. 1. a) beai'iug the polypes, 

 and a lower part or stalk (Fig. 1. Z>), which has no polypes, and is in the 

 natural condition planted in the sea bottom. 



Concerning the stalk, however, the Oban specimens tell us nothing, 

 for they are all broken short either at the junction of the stalk and 

 rachis, or else some distance above this point. More than this, in 

 addition to this imperfection at the lower end, all the specimens are 

 imperfect at the upper end also. 



All seven of the Oban specimens are, indeed, only fragments : in all 

 cases both the tops and the stalks are wanting ; in four specimens 

 the fracture at the lower end has taken place at the junction of stalk 

 and rachis ; while in the remaining three it has occurred somewhat 

 higher up, in the lower part of the rachis. 



This mutilated condition of the specimens of I'irijuhiria is a very 

 interesting point. It might at first be thought that the Birmingham 

 Society had for some reason or other been exceptionally unlucky, but 

 this is not the case. The concurrent testimony of all naturalists who 

 have dredged or described Virgularia mirahilis agrees in showing that 

 this mutilation is not exceptional, but is on the contrary the almost 

 invariable rule. Dalyell, writing on this point, says : — " Neither can 

 I certify from what I myself have seen, or from the narrative of others, 

 that in this country it has occurred entire and unmutilated on any 

 occasion whatever. I have not had the good fortune of finding a 

 representation of it in the perfect state ;" * and KoUiker, our greatest 

 authority on the whole group of Pennatulida, remarks, that of V. mirahilia 

 a perfect unmutilated specimen has never yet been seen.f 



Specimens with the lower end or stalk complete are very rare, but 

 a certain number have been described and figured by Dalyell, KoUiker, 

 and others. No description has yet appeared, so far as we can 

 ascertain, of a specimen with the upper end perfect, and KoUiker ex- 

 pressly states that he has never seen one. We have had the good fortune 

 to find one such specimen in the Glasgow University Museum, believed 

 to have been dredged off the west coast of Scotland, but with the 

 exact locality and date of capture unrecorded. Though perfect at the 

 top, this specimen, which is nine inches in length, is only a partial 

 exception to the general rule concerning mutilation, for it is broken off 

 below at what appears to be the usual x^lace, the junction of rachis 

 and stalk. 



* Dalyell : " Rare and Keiiiarkable Animals of Scotland,'' 1848, Vol. ii., p. 181. 

 t Kiilliker: .\lcyonarien, 187:3, p. 190. 



