GELATINOSI, 433 
animals are united in more or less considerable number on a common 
base, sometimes in the form of a creeping stem*, and sometimes 
having a broad surface +. 
Lucernaria, Mil. 
The Lucernariz should apparently be approximated to the Actinie, 
but their substance is softer; they fix themselves to fuci and other 
marine bodies by a slender pedicle, and their superior portion dilates 
lke a parasol, in the centre of which is the mouth. Numerous tenta- 
cula united in bundles are arranged round its edges. Between the 
mouth and these same edges are eight organs resembling ceca, pro- 
ceeding from the stomach and containing a red and granulated sub- 
stance, In the 
S. gquadricornis, Mill., Zool. Dan., XX XIX, 1, 6, the edge is 
divided into four forked branches, each of which bears two groups 
of tentacula. In the 
L. auricula, tbid., CLIT, the eight groups are equally distri- 
buted round an octagonal margin tf. 
ORDER II. 
GELATINOSI. 
The gelatinous Polypi, unlike the preceding ones, are not invested 
with a firm envelope, neither is there a ligneous, fleshy, nor corneous 
axis in the interior of their mass. Their body is gelatinous and more 
or less conical; its cavity supphes the want of a stomach. 
Hypra, Lin. 
Of all the animals of this class, these are reduced to the greatest 
degree of simplicity. A little gelatinous horn, whose edges are pro- 
vided with filaments that act as tentacula, constitutes their whole 
apparent organization. The microscope discovers nothing in their 
substauce but a diaphanous parenchyma filled with more opaque 
granules. - Nothwithstanding this, they swim, crawl, and even walk 
by alternately fixing their two extremities in the manner of Leeches 
or of the caterpillars called Geometree. They agitate their tentacnla 
and use them for seizing their prey, which can be seen being digested 
* Hydra sociata, Gm.; Ell. and Soll., Corall., I,i; Enceye., LXX, 1. 
+ Alcyonium mammillosum, Ell. and Sol., loc. cit., 4 ;—Ale. digitatum, Id. Ib., 6. 
These last form the genus PALYTHOE of Lamouroux, and lead to the Alcyonie. 
This genus appears to have been characterized from desiccated specimens. See the 
great work on Egypt, Zool., Polyp., pl. ii, f. 1—4. 
+ Add Lucer. fascicularis, Fleming., Werner. Soc., II, xviii, 1, 2 ;—Luc. campa- 
nula, Lamouroux, Mém. du Mus., II, xvi. The Lucernaria phrygia, Fab.; Faun, 
Groenl., 345, should, apparently, form another genus. See the Memoir of M, La- 
mouroux on these Zoophytes, inthe Mém. du Mus,, II. 
