ANTHOZOA. 69" 



communicate with the general cavity (r), which is divided into 

 compartments by septa (jn), on the Avails of which the gonads (r/) are 

 developed. The axis is occupied by the stomach (.s), which com- 

 municates below with the general cavity, and opens above by a 

 mouth marked by a special slit {od) ; p marks the point at which a 

 chamber is in communication with its neighbour, and d is the lower 

 surface of the disk. 



As it is impossible to preserve in spirit the beauty of form and 

 colouring presented by Sea-Anemones, the aid of the artist has been 

 called in, and sketches from life are shown on the walls. 



As in the Zoantharia, there may be no spicules, a horny skeleton,. 

 or a continuous calcareous skeleton ; but spicules scattered in the 

 flesh are not known. 



Of the soft-bodied forms other than the well-known Sea- Anemone- 

 of the shore, attention should be directed to the remarkable Ceri- 

 a/ithus memhranaeetis (Fig. 8), which makes for itself a curious woven 

 tube, open at either end. The eifect of this is that, during a 

 dredging operation, the Cerianthus generally succeeds in making his 

 escape, and a mere empty tube is all that rewards the dredger. 



The Antipatharia have a purely horny skeleton, which encloses a 

 central canal and is always spiny. This skeleton may be a single 

 rod, as in Girrijmthes, where it may attain a great height, or consist 

 of a collection of straight rods, as in the remarkable forms from 

 Mauritius, which has been called Antipathes rohillardi ; or it 

 may be more or less branched and form tufts or wide plates, as in 

 Aplianif utiles, or the branches may fuse with one another, as in 

 Arachnopathes, an elegant example of which will be found by itself 

 on the wall near the middle doors. The most common form is the 

 tree-like A. abies (Fig. *.)). 



According to the recent researches of Dr. Carlgren, the large 

 black coral-like structure which forms such a conspicuous object 

 opposite the eastern door to this Gallery, and which is known as 

 Gerardia savalia (Fig, 10), has been wrongly regarded as an Anti- 

 patharian or horny coral. It is, according to the Swedish naturalist^ 

 allied by the structure of its polyps to Parazoanthus, and must 

 therefore be placed with the otherwise soft-bodied Zoantharia. The 

 specimen here exhibited, with a suitable explanatory label, is sur- 

 prisingly large, and nothing like it is possessed by any other Museimi 

 of Natural History. 



The majority of the specimens belong to the group of stony corals 

 or Madreporaria. Tlie stoniness is due to the secretion of carbonate 



