147 



lities and Algce. It varies from two to three feet in height. The 

 axis is known from the unbranched species of Gorgonia by being more 

 calcareous, and of a pale greyish colour. 



Joseph jNIillingin, Esq., F.L.S., the Secretary of the Royal Society 

 of Van Diemen's Land, has kindly sent me the following particulars 

 of this coral : — 



" It was fished up from a depth of some fathoms in D'Entrecas- 

 teaux Channel, between the mainland of Tasmania and Bruce's Island. 

 It is found, as you will see, affixed to rocks and stones, and to dead, 

 broken and half-decayed oyster and scallop-shells, &c. It usually ex- 

 ists in groups, groves or families, varying from three to four to a great 

 many. The long delicate stem, which is horny-looking and highly elas- 

 tic when dry, varies from the thickness of a knitting- wire to that of a 

 crow-quill, and from its mineralized and root-like attachment, tapers 

 gradually and gracefully to the beautiful acicular point, attaining not 

 unfrequently a length of two or three feet, and having its entire sur- 

 face covered with a calcareous coat of a cream-yellow colour, deli- 

 cately annulated, so as much to resemble the fine string of wooden 

 beads worn as a necklace by the poorer natives of Bengal, but with 

 this difference, — that in the coralline the beads form a connected or 

 rather continuous chain, independently of the delicate elastic centre 

 upon which the mineral structure is deposited. I am informed that 

 in one or two instances, when these corallines were procured, they 

 were enveloped throughout with a mucilaginous or jelly-like substance, 

 which when they become dry is exsiccated and shriveled to such a 

 degree as to be scarcely if at all traceable. You will be able to say 

 whether you consider it likely that there exists, in the recent and living 

 state of the zoophyte, such an external and soft organization." 



This jelly-like substance was doubtless the polypes. 



3. On the evidences of affinity afforded by the Skull in 

 THE Ungulate Mammalia. By H. N. Turner, Jun. 



I had occasion in the introductory part of my communication on 

 the arrangement of the Carnivorn, to make allusion to certain details 

 of structure in the crania of the Pachydermatous and Ruminant Mam- 

 malia ; and I there pointed out a few peculiarities, which clearly di- 

 stinguished the Perissodactyla of Professor Owen, both from the Ru- 

 minant and Non-ruminant Artiodactyla, and also the two latter divi- 

 sions from each other. It is to our eminent Comparative Anatomist 

 that we are indebted, by the discovery of some new characters, and 

 the correction of certain former errors of observation, for the establish- 

 ment of that mode of subdividing the Ungulata which first suggested 

 itself to Cuvier ; but there can be no doubt, that when the entire 

 anatomy of the order is investigated with this view, many constant 

 distinctions will yet be made apparent, and our appreciation of the 

 comparative degrees of affinity among its members will become clearer 

 as we proceed. 



In taking up the subject as it has thus been left, I have first di- 

 rected my attention to the skull, as being that part in which the 



