176 UPPER, OR FLINTY CHALK. 



alcyonia ; and that each individual was a perfect animal*, capable of 

 performing those motions which were necessary for its preservation and 

 subsistence. 



LocaHties. Upper chalk, near Lewes and Brighton. 



19. Ventriculites alcyonoides. Org. Rem. Vol. ii. Tab. x. fig. 12. 

 Smith's Strata, Tab. iii. fig. 1. 



Spec. char. Conical when contracted, disciform when dilated; meshes 

 of the external surface nearly circular, fiUed with small radiated (?) pores or 

 openings ; inner surface covered with papillae : stirps fixed by radical 

 processes. 



This species is rare in Sussex, but common in a contracted state at 

 Heytesbury, in Wiltsliire ; the expanded specimens are of less frequent 

 occurrence. 



The external integument is finely reticulated, the meshes or openings 

 being very numerous, and almost circular; a structure by which the 

 present species may be easily distinguished from V. radiatus. 



In some siHceous specimens, the meshes are filled by little cells or 

 pores, having a central opening, and surrounded by radiating lamellge, 

 which are rendered evident, by a lens of moderate power; these in all 

 probability, are the external orifices of tubuU that pass through the 

 substance of the zoophyte, and terminate in the papillae of the inner 

 surface. 



It is a small species, seldom exceeding two inches and a half in 

 length. 



The impressions both of the outer and inner surface are conical, and 

 studded with papillae ; but the former are concave ; the latter, solid and 

 convex. The difference in the form of this ventriculite when in an 



slitting it open,Jbund that it contained the remains of a sprat, {Clupea sprattus) in a partially digested 

 state; and that these unknovm bodies "were in fact the actinia:, enormously distended. Subsequent 

 observations convinced him, that after a certain period the animal rejected the undigested 

 remains of the fish, and subsequently contracted into its original shape ; remaining in a quies- 

 cent or torpid state till the next season, when its annual repast was renewed. ^ 



May not the nutrition of the ventriculites have been effected in a similar manner ? 



* Mr. Miller thinks this opinion is erroneous, and that each ventriculite should be 

 regarded as an aggregation of polypes. 



