1867.] DR. J. E. GRAY ON ZOANTHIN^. 23;") 



slightly elevated, straight and parallel above, with a thickened edge 

 and sinuous below. 



Pales cliftoni. (Fig. 1, p. 236.) 



Hab. Western Austraha {Mr. Clifton). 



The bodies are from ^ to | inch in diameter ; but they vary 

 greatly in length, some being as much as 2 inches long ; but the 

 general length seems to be about an inch, — that is to say, of the 

 specimens in spirits ; wlien alive they are probably longer. They 

 are found attached to shells, both isolated and in clusters, and the 

 larger ones are attached to the base of each other, forming a some- 

 what stellate cluster, as if they were free floating in the sea. 



In others (the Zoanthi sabuliferi, or Palythceina) the outer sur- 

 face of the polypes is hard, orustaeeous, and thickened with im- 

 bedded grains of sand. 



This group may be divided into sections by the habit of the 

 animal, some being attached to marine bodies, and others living 

 free. 



I. Coral free, unattached. 



I. Sphenopus, Steenstrup, Overs, Dansk. Vidensk. Selskabs. 

 Forhandl. 1856, p. 37. 



Sabella, sp., Schroter, Gmelin. 



The type of this genus is an animal that was long ago figured as 

 a Sabella by Schroter, and named from Schroter's figure Sabella 

 marsupialis by Gmelin. Professor Steenstrup has found the origi- 

 nal specimens in spirits, which were collected by Johns, the Mora- 

 vian missionary, in Tranquebar, and has described them and their 

 anatomy, under the name of Sphenopus marsupialis, in the ' Pro- 

 ceedings of the Danish Academy' for 1856. But I am not aware 

 that any other specimen had been collected, until those which were 

 sent to the Liverpool jNIuseum. M. Milne-Edwards evidently has 

 not seen them ; for he places the genus Stenopus with the free-bodied, 

 soft-skinned Actim<s, giving a very short account of the animal, 

 evidently extracted from Steenstrup' s paper, and without even men- 

 tioning the habitat. 



The body is free, rather variable in shape, but more or less like a 

 small flask ; the upper part is cylindrical, truncated vfhen contracted, 

 with a central opening ; the hinder part is more or less compressed 

 and half ovate, the hinder portion in some specimens being trun- 

 cated or rounded, and in others more or less produced, with a blunt 

 rounded end. The outer surface is hard, formed of agglutinated 

 sand closely imbedded in a thick cartilaginous case. The upper 

 truncated part of the case has some indistinct lines, which are often 

 scarcely to be distinguished, radiating towards the central aperture ; 

 in one of the specimens there are three round sunken pits on each 

 side of the neck of the body, just under the swollen edge of the trun- 

 cated upper end. In some of the other specimens there are slightly 



