[^ OCT 5;7 19:6 V 



ON NEW SPECIES OF EDWARDSIA FROM NEW GUINIIA^ 513 ' " ^j 



A Description of Five new Species of JEdioardsia, Quatr., from New 

 Guinea, with an Account of the Order of Succession of the Micro- 

 mesenteries and Tentacles in the Edwardsidse. By GILBERT C. Bourne^ 

 M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S., F.L.S. 



(Plate 51, and 2 Text-figures.) 

 [Read 6th April, 1916.] 



For some time past I have been working out the anatomy of a collection of 

 Anthozoa made some years ago by Dr. A. Willey in New Guinea. My 

 apologies are due and are hereby tendered to him for not having undertaken 

 this work sooner. For one reason or another it was put aside ; but, when 

 I began to give serious attention to it some eighteen months ago, I found 

 that the collection included several forms of great interest, one of which 

 I have already described. Among the specimens were five species of the 

 genus Edwardsia, which form the subject of the present short memoir, and 

 a number of other forms v>'hich appear to be related to, but can hardly 

 be included in, the subfamily Phelliinpe. It was my intention to give a 

 full and detailed description of the anatomy and histology of these forms, 

 and I had expected to bring my work to a conclusion by the end of 

 last summer. But my time has been taken up since the beginning of 

 August by numerous interests arising from the European war, and, at 

 the time of writing, I am about to leave Oxford for service in the Arm3^ 

 As my investigations on the Edwardsise were nearly complete, and the 

 results partly written out in full, it has seemed desirable to put together, 

 in however hurried a manner, such parts of my projected memoir as seem 

 worth publishing as a preliminary notice. I have not been able, in the 

 short time at my disposal, to give an account of my observations on the 

 anatomy and histology of the species I have studied, and this must be 

 deferred to a future publication. The present paper is confined to a 

 description of the five species collected by Dr. AVilley in New Guinea, 

 and to an account of the sequence of the development of the tentacles 

 and micromesenteries in the Edvvardsia3. 



The genus Edivardsia, de Quatrefages, has been the subject of much 

 discussion among actinologists in recent years, and has successively been 

 raised to the rank of an ancestral type and degraded to the position of 

 a degenerate offshoot of the dodecamerous Actinians. It was originally 

 described by de Quatrefages (23), 0. & R. Hertvvig (15), and Andres (1) as 

 having eight, and only eight, mesenteries, of which the muscle-banners are 

 arranged on a plan exactly resembling that of the first four couples of 

 protocnemes of Actinians and Corals. This feature attracted the special 



LINN. JOURN. ZOOLOGY, VOL. XSXIL 41 



