Dr. Johnston's Catalogue of Zoophytes. 251 



the form of a cross, and toothed on the sides. These curious and beautiful objects have no 

 organic connection, either with the fibres among which they lie, or with the tubes, and are 

 disposed without any regularity ; they are calcarious, for if a portion of the Zoophyte is 

 immersed in a mineral acid, a strong effervescence immediately takes place, and no crys- 

 talline spicula are longer discernible. Their use I am unable to conjecture. 



The fibres of the net-work just described are, I think, tubular threads, anastomosing 

 freely together ; and, being a little more crowded at particular places, they form lozenge- 

 shaped compartments filled up by smaller meshes. Our figures may elucidate, in some 

 degree, this imperfect description of a structure 1 have often studied and admired, but it 

 would require the hand of a practised engraver to convey an adequate idea of its beauty 

 and intricacy. 



The ova are placed in the polype-tubes ; they are of a scarlet colour, opake, smooth, and 

 globular, about the size of a grain of sand. Each ovum is filled with a mass of extremely 

 minute pellucid granules. 



Dr. Fleming is of opinion that the Alcyonium lobatum of Lamoureux, whose figure we 

 have quoted without any doubt, is a perfectly distinct species, because its tentacula " are 

 sub-cylindrical, rounded at the extremity, and covered above and on the margin with blunt 

 tubercles ;" whereas of our Alcyonium " the tentacula in Ellis's figures (and, having com- 

 pared these with nature, we can pronounce on their accuracy,) are pinnate and pointed." 

 I will not dispute the accuracy of Ellis, but the figure he has given of the tentacula, in his 

 Essay on Corallines, is very unlike any thing I have seen, and has, probably, been taken 

 from a specimen preserved in spirits.* His figure of the same parts in his Nat. Hist, of 

 Zoophytes (t. 1, f. 7), is much better, and appears to have been drawn when the animal 

 was active and fully expanded. It is very seldom, however, that we have an opportunity 

 of seeing the animal in that state, for if we place a specimen in a glass of sea-water, the 

 polypes will indeed protrude themselves, but it is only to die with their tentacula thick, 

 contracted, and shortened, and like, in every respect, to the figures of Lamoureux, which 

 do not much differ from some of our own. The figure I have given of the detached polype 

 may be considered as almost intermediate between Ellis's and Lamoureux's. It was 

 taken from the dead polype, slightly compressed between plates of glass. The differences 

 in the different figures, therefore, it appears to me, ought to be attributed to the animal 

 being in different or opposite states when observed, and will not justify the establishment of 

 a distinct species. 



5. ALCYONIUM. 



1. A. hirsutum, polypidom spunge-like, flattened, variously divided, the surface covered 

 with minute close-set conical papilla;, or polype- cells; polypes with sixteen equal long 

 filiform tentacula (tab. nost. ix. f. 1). 

 A. hirsutum, Flem. Br. Anim. 517 ; Johnston, in Zool. Journ. iv. 418. 



• This conjecture is supported by some passages in his Introduction, p. xii. 



