THE ANNALS 
AND 
MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
[FIFTH SERIES.] 
No. 14. FEBRUARY 1879. 
X. — On some new and rare Hydroid Zoophytes (Sertu- 
lariidfe and Thuiariidse) from Australia and New Zealand. 
By D’Aecy W. ThOxMPSON, Edinburgh. 
[Plates XVI.-XIX.] 
The Hydroid Fauna of Australia and New Zealand has been, 
perhaps, more fully investigated than that of any region of 
the earth’s surface, with the exception of the European seas 
and the eastern coasts of North America. Its history, how¬ 
ever, is contained as yet only in many detached and scattered 
papers ; and no attempt has been made to gather together and 
to correlate the information contained in them. 
The largest and most important collection ever brought 
home from the Australian seas was that described by Mr. 
Busk in the appendix to Macgillivray’s 1 Voyage of the 
Rattlesnake.’ Besides numerous and most interesting Plumu- 
lariidee, it contained fifteen species of Sertularia , twelve 
of which are new and undescribed. Of these, many, unfortu¬ 
nately, were small or imperfect specimens, and fully half were 
destitute of gonangia. Six out of the fifteen species were 
collected off Cumberland Island or in the Louisiade archi¬ 
pelago, the remainder principally in the neighbourhood of 
Bass’s Straits. No form, I believe, was fouud common to the 
two localities. It is much to be regretted that this most valu¬ 
able collection was not described at greater length, and still 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. iii. 7 
