60 



IF, D. Lang — The Reptant Eleid Polyzoa. 



IV. — The Eeptant Eleid Polyzoa. 



By W. D. Lang, M.A., F.Z.S., F.G.S., of the British Museum (Natural History). 



rpHE Eleidee are a very natural family of extinct Polyzoa, 

 X remarkable for exhibiting characters relative to both the 

 groups Cyclostomata and Cheilostomata. It is not, however, the 

 -affinities of this with other families that are here considered, but 

 a means of determining by zocecial characters the replant ' species ' 

 within the group ; the validity of the ' genera ' forming it ; the 

 occurrence in England of one of the 'genera' — Semimultelea — 

 hitherto unrecorded from Britain ; the description of a new species 

 of this 'genus'; and the phenomenon of local groups of zooecia 

 having characters differing from those of the rest of the zoarium. 



The systematic position of the Eleids has been discussed by 

 Gregory,^ whose account of the group in the British Museum 

 Catalogue this paper may be considered as summarising and as 

 supplementing. 



Before considering the points mentioned it will be convenient to 

 tabulate the 'genera' of Eleids as at present established. As in the 

 families of Cyclostomes, the Eleidse fall into series founded on the 

 habit of the whole colony (the zoarium). The general sequence 

 is from single series of individuals to encrusting sheets, to foliate 

 erect sheets, to erect cylindrical branches. The following table shows 

 this sequence in the Eleidee and in two families of Cyclostomes^ : — 



1 J. "W. Gregory : British Museum Catalogue of Cretaceous Brj'ozoa, vol. i (1899). 

 - See also for a small table of this kind, Gregory, British Museum Catalogue of 

 Jurassic Bryozoa, liS96, p. 29. 



