ANTIPATHES. 53 



scribed, flower-shaped, symmetrically radiate, with long tentacles ; the 

 other so elongated longitudinally that the radiate shape is quite indis- 

 tinct, the six tentacles being disposed in pairs at some distance from 

 each other. Unfortunately the number of species examined is too 

 small to allow of basing any attempt at classification on those charac- 

 ters, which furthermore seem to bear no connection with the general 

 shape of the corallum. 



ANTIPATHES Pallas. 



Antipathes tetrasticha Poubt. 



Anlipathe.i tetrasticha Poukt. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., No. 7. 



Corallum with simple stem, pinnate ; branchlets alternate and gen- 

 erally double, two branchlets starting from the same point at an acute 

 angle, thus forming four rows, two on each side of the main stem. In 

 some specimens few of the branchlets are double, in others nearly all. 

 The branchlets are moderately beset with short, somewhat blunt, tri- 

 angular spines. No swellings, as in A. humiMs and A. Ji/ir. 



Polyps small, very much elongated, with the tentacles short and 

 blunt, placed in pairs, so that in a branchlet or pinnule the lower side 

 appears fringed with tentacles placed in pairs, and it requires some 

 attention to distinguish the single polyps by the position of the mouth. 

 They are all of one size on the pinnules, but there is generally a some- 

 what larger polyp on the main stem between the successive pinnules. 



Total height 7 cm., length of pinnules 3 to 4 cm. 



Off Sand Key, in 120 and 125 fathoms. 



Duchassaing and Michelotti have described very briefly, under the 

 name of A americana, a pinnate species with simple stem, but the pin- 

 nules are described as dichotomizing rather frequently, which is never 

 the case in ours. 



Antipathes dissecta Duch. & Mich. 



The very scanty description given of this species in Supplement an 

 M< moire sur les CoralUaires, etc., leaves some doubt as to the correct 

 identification of my specimens, of which it is therefore not superfluous 

 to give a fuller description. 



Corallum large, irregularly branching into long, crooked arms, of 

 more or less elliptical section. Ultimate branchlets or pinnules few in 

 number, alternate and very loosely pinnate, without swellings. (Du- 



