ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICEOSCOPT, ETC. 745 



If an Anthozoon had produced medusoid buds it would, on the 

 analogy of our explanation of the morphology of the Hydrozoa, be said 

 that the fixed stage was the primitive, ancestral, and normal. 



At this the author stops, but it is not difficult for the reader to see 

 the significance of these considerations. 



New Type of Anthozoa. — M. C. Viguier describes,* under the name 

 of Fasdcularia radicans, a new type of Anthozoa which was collected in 

 the port of Algiers. The single specimen was a female colony which 

 formed a fixed network of anastomosing stolons from 3 to 6 mm. wide. 

 The polyps which rose from these had, when completely retracted, very 

 much the appearance of those of Paralcyonium ; when expanded, how- 

 ever, they were seen to be very different. The polyps of the new form 

 are entirely distinct from one another, and their separation is very 

 strongly marked by white lines, formed by the spicules which lie at the 

 top of the septa between the polyps. The common wall which surrounds 

 the cluster of polyps is supported by a palisade of long white spicules, 

 which are set vertically. The free portion of the polyps may expand to 

 twice the height of the basal column or to a length of from 16 to 18 mm. 

 The number of polyps in one cluster is not more than ten or twelve. 

 The author proposes to form for the reception of this new type a sub- 

 family of Fascicularinte, intermediate between the Cornularinse and the 

 Alcyoninse. 



M. Lacaze-Duthiers t thinks this new type is his Paralcyonium 

 edivardsii. 



'Porcupine' Pennatulida.J — Prof. A. Milnes Marshall and Mr. G. 

 H. Fowler report on the Pennatulida dredged by H.M.S. ' Porcupine.' 

 The collection included seven genera and nine species, of which one genus 

 (Deutocaulon), and one variety (candida) of Pennatula pJwsjyJiorea are 

 new to science. Kolliker's classification is followed, though not regarded 

 as satisfactory, e. g. in the wide separation of Protocaulidte and Virgu- 

 laridae. Descriptive notes are given in regard to Pteroides griseum Koll. ; 

 Pennatula phosphorea L. var. aculeata Koll. ; var. lancifolia, sub-var. 

 variegata Koll. ; var. Candida, n. ; P. rubra Ell. ; Svava glacialis, var. 

 alha Kor. and Dan. ; Funiculina quadrangularis Pall. ; KojpJiohelemnon 

 stelliferum Miill. ; Deutocaulon n. g., D. hystricis n. sp. ; ProtoiAilum 

 carpenteri. 



Beutocaulon is intermediate between the simple Protocaulon and such 

 forms as Cladiscus and Svava. It is defined as — Pennatulida ex familia 

 Protocaulidarum, quorum autozooidea, singulatim orta, penuEe laterales 

 fiunt ; calyx nuUus ; axis cylindratus. 



Porifera. 



Natural History of Siliceous Sponges.§— Prof. F. C. Noll, in the 

 first of his essays on the natural history of siliceous sj)onges, deals with 

 Desmacidon Bosci Noll from the coast of Norway, and makes some ob- 

 servations on Craniella carnosa and Spongilla fragilis. The new species 

 is about 6 cm. high, and from 5 to G mm. thick ; it is of a greyish- 

 yellow colour, and becomes whitish-grey in spirit. There are a large 



* Comptes Eendus, cvii. (1S88) pp. 186-7. t Loc. cit., p. 215. 



% Trans. R. Soc. Edin., xxxiii. (1888) pp. 453-64 (2 pis.). 



§ Abh. Sonckenberg. Nat. Gesell., xv. (1888) pp. 1-58 (3 pis.). 



