902 DR. BOWERBANK ON HYALONEMA LUSITANICUM. [NoV. 28, 



the most important portion of his body, his basal spongeous mass, 

 turned him upside down, so that his so-called polypes were situated 

 at his supposed base, instead of at the upper part of his spiral column, 

 and then turned him adrift a denizen of the wide ocean. "With this 

 imaginary constitution the poor animal could no longer be considered 

 a Hyalonema ; but this difficulty was readily to be got over, and 

 the Doctor, with his usual facility in such operations, soon devised 

 a new genus, founded on the imaginary characters he had himself 

 created, which he has denominated Hyalothrix, and which he thus 

 characterizes : — 



" The polypes with forty tentacles in several concentric series, the 

 outer series the largest. The axis, covered to the very base with the 

 polype, bearing bark strengthened with cylindrical filiform siliceous 

 spicules, and with a smooth external coat without any imbedded 

 granules." 



Having thus imagined his animal, and fitted him with a new genus, 

 the Doctor, with an artless simplicity that is really very charming, 

 observes, " This genus is at once distinguished from Hyalonema by 

 the coral not living with its base immersed in a sponge. It lives 

 evidently free ; but how it keeps itself in an erect position so that 

 all the polypes round the axis may obtain food is yet to be dis- 

 covered." 



But alas for the stability of this ingenious natural-history ro- 

 mance ! The irresistible logic of facts has destroyed the whole edi- 

 fice ; for scarcely could the ink have dried with which Dr. Gray's 

 imaginations were printed before Prof. Bocage announced that he 

 had at last obtained a specimen of his H. lusitanicum with the basal 

 sponge embracing the proximal uncovered end of the spiral column 

 in the same manner as in the Japanese specimens. AH reasoning 

 upon Dr. Gray's imaginary animal now becomes superfluous, and we 

 have only to deal with Prof. Bocage's specimens of Hyalonema lusi- 

 tanicum. 



Shortly after I had learned from Dr. Gray that Prof. Bocage had 

 acquired a specimen of his species with the basal sponge adhering 

 to it, I wrote to him on the subject, enclosing a small portion of the 

 spongeous base of my specimen of H. mirabile, figured in the ' Pro- 

 ceedings of the Zoological Society,' Part 1, PI. IV. f. 2, for the year 

 1867, that he might compare its organic structures with those of the 

 basal sponge of his //. lusitanicum, and begging the favour of a small 

 portion of the basal sponge of his specimen. To this request he 

 replied with much kindness and liberality, enclosing a piece of the 

 sponge 4 lines in length by about 3 in width — a quantity, as it will 

 be seen, amply sufficient to demonstrate accurately the structural 

 characters and relations of the two species. The fragment of sponge 

 is apparently from the surface of the specimen, as it is enveloped in 

 the remains of a rather stout brown membrane. After examining 

 the specimen in water, I disintegrated about half of it, and mounted 

 the spicula in Canada balsam, and then mounted the remaining por- 

 tion in the same material, in the state in which I had received it. 

 The results of my examinations of it were most satisfactory. In the 



