6 



ence of one of these switches to a genus (Osteocella) made by him, I quote as 

 follows from page 405, of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Vol. 

 IX, (Fourth Series). Dr. Gray refers to the Genus Osteocella as follows : " Mr. 

 Clifton, many years ago, sent * * * to the British Museum, the ' backbone 

 taken out of the marine animal in bottle marked No. 1. I caught him, or it, 

 swimming with great rapidity in shallow water.' The bottle never reached 

 the British Museum ; but the backbone did ; and I described it at the end of 

 the ' Catalogue of Sea-Pens, or Pennatulidte, in the British Museum,' published 

 in 1870, under the name of ' Osteocella Cliftoni '; but considered it very 

 doubtful its belonging to the Pennatulidse." 



The British Museum has lately received a very long, slender bone, 6434' 

 inches long and 3-16 inch broad in its broadest part, which was sent to the 

 Zoological Society by the Hudson Bay Company, and evidently came from 

 the northern seas, probably from the west coast of America. 



Mr. Carter has kindly examined the Australian specimen sent by Mr. Clifton, 

 and the one sent * * by the Hudson Bay Company * * * and finds them, 

 under the microscope, " present the same horny structure, viz., a fibrous trama, 

 more or less charged with oval cells or spaces, quite unlike that of Gorgonia 

 and Pennatula, which present a concentric mass of horny layers, charged more 

 or less with calcareous crystalline concretions. It is evidently a second species 

 of the same genus, Osteocella." 



After a few lines, follows a description of the genus 



" Osteocella, Cray. Cat. of Pennatulidse (1870), p. 40." 



After describing the style, or axis, he refers to the animal (which neither he 

 nor we have seen) in the following words : " Animal or colony of animals free, 

 marine; otherwise unknown; most probably like the Pennatulidse, but the 

 style is harder, more calcareous and polished than any known style belonging to 

 that group, which are generally square, sometimes cylindrical, but rarely fusi- 

 form in the genus Virgvdaria; or. it may be the long conical bone of a form of 

 decapod cephalopod, which has not yet occurred to naturalists, as Mr. Clifton 

 spoke of its being a free marine animal, and it has a cartilaginous apex like the 

 cuttlefish. * * * * It is evident that there are two species of animal yielding 

 this kind of bony substance : 



1. Osteocella Cliftoni. Thick, about 11 inches long, tapering at each end. 

 From Western Australia. 



2. Osteocella septentrional is. Long, slender, about 64 inches long, attenua- 

 ted at the base, and very much attenuated and elongated at the other end. 

 Northern Seas? Collected by the Hudson's Bay Company." 



This latter, undoubtedly refers to the same forms, of which we have iiumcr" 

 ous specimens in the Academy's Museum, and which are referred to in this 

 paper. 



Dr. Gray proceeds and says : " Mr. Carter informs me that subsequent ex- 

 amination of this axis with acid, • shows that it is similarly composed to that 

 of Gorgonia, viz.. of kerataceous fibre or substance, and calcareous crystalline 

 matter like that of the stem of Osteocella Cliftoni, and the other Pennatulidse, 



