92 CORALS AND CORAL ISLANDS. 



paneled, and the small figure represents one of the polyps en- 

 larged. The third figure represents a polyp of another spe- 

 cies, from Hong Kong, a true Veretillum, enlarged three di- 

 ameters ; the specimens, obtained by Dr. Stimpson, and de- 

 scribed by Prof. Verrill, were six to eight inches in length, and, 

 where thickest, were three inches or more in diameter. 



A common Mediterranean species is the Veretillum cynomo- 

 rium ; and it has been recently found, of a length of ten in- 

 ches, in the depths of the Atlantic off the coast of Spain. Mr. 

 W. S. Kent observes, with regard to its polyps and their 

 phosphorescent qualities, as follows : 



" Nothing can exceed the beauty of the elegant opaline pol- 

 yps of this zoophyte when fully expanded, and clustered 

 like flowers on their orange-colored stalk ; a beauty, however, 

 almost equalled by night, when, on the slightest irritation, the 

 whole colony glows from one extremity to the other with un- 

 dulating waves of pale green phosphoric light. A large buck- 

 etful of these Alcyonaria was experimentally stirred up one 

 dark evening, and the brilliant luminosity evolved produced a 

 spectacle too brilliant for words to describe. The supporting 

 stem appeared always to be the chief seat of these phosphor- 

 escent properties, and from thence the scintillations travelled 

 onward to the bodies of the polyps themselves. Some of the 

 specimens of this magnificent zoophyte measured as much as 

 ten inches from the proximal to the distal extremity of the 

 supporting stalk, while the individual polyps, when fully ex- 

 serted, protruded upward of an inch and a half from this in- 

 flated stalk, and measured as much as an inch in the diameter 

 of their expanded tentacular discs." 



In several genera of the Pennatula tribe there are two 

 kinds of polyps over the surface, and this was the case with the 

 Veretillum Stimpseni, as observed by Prof. Verrill. Between 



