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XIII. A Revision of the Genera of the Alcyonaria Stolonifera, with a Description of 

 one new Genus and several new Sj^ecies. By Sydney J. Hickson, M.A. Cantah., 

 D.Sc. Loud., F.Z.S., Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. 



Eeceived October 13th, 1892, read December 6th, 1892. 



[Plates XLV.-L.J 



In a communication made to the Eoyal Society in 1883 (8) I pointed out the- 

 advisability of separating those Alcyonarians in which the polypes spring independently 

 from a basal stolon into a special suborder, for which I proposed the term Stolonifera. 

 As my suggestions have not been very generally accepted by continental writers on 

 this group, it is necessary to preface my remarks by a short defence of the position 

 I now take in retaining this suborder. 



No very serious argument has yet been brought forward against the retention of the 

 Stolonifera. Von Koch (19), in his monograph of the Gorgonidse of Naples, refers 

 to my paper in a footnote only, and does not attempt either to describe or criticize my 

 classification. I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without reference to the extra- 

 ordinary and perfectly unjustifiable attack that he has made upon me in this footnote. 



He says, in the first place, that I have quite falsely quoted his paper on the " Skelet 

 der Alcyonarien." The sentence to which he probably objects will be found on 

 page 699. It runs as follows: — " Recently von Koch has suggested a classification 

 that is based on the varieties of the skeleton, but it seems to me that the Pennatulidse 

 and Gorgonidse are not so closely related as to justify their position in the same division 

 of the same group (Axifera)." The word Axifera, it is true, at the end of this sentence 

 was allowed to remain in this position in the text by an oversight, and for that I 

 apologize; but the general statement is perfectly true, for on p. 474, in describing his 

 third " Hauptgruppe," he says " Zu der letzten Abtheilung gehoren die beiden 



Familien der Pennatuliden (VII.) und die der Axifera (VIII.) " (i. e. the true 



Gorgonidse). 



In the second place, he says that I did not investigate a single true Gorgonid 

 (Axifera) ; but, as a matter of fact, I not only did make and examine several series of 

 sections through the polypes of Primnoa, which von Koch himself includes in his 

 family Gorgonidse, but I actually gave and described a careful drawing of one of these 

 sections. I was induced to make the statement that the siphonoglyphe is probably 

 absent in the Gorgonidse, partly because I could find no such structure in the two 

 forms I investigated myself, and partly because von Koch himself did not describe any 



VOL. XIII. — PAKT IX. No. 1. — October 1st, 1894. 3 b 



