66 F. A. SMITT, 



Membranipore in a high degree of calcification. A doser examination, however, parti- 

 cularly of the young zooecia, clearly shows their truly escharine constitution, although 

 they are modined in the celleporine manner, in being raised vertically, thus, in the 

 upper surface of the colony, presenting only their distal part, with the horizontal 

 aperture crowned by its raised margin, which is as it were broken up into 4 or 5 

 pointed tubercles. These, as the representatives of marginal spines, for their form and 

 position, most readily will be compared with the proximal pair of the spines in the 

 Lepralia spathulifera '). 



The freely raised ooecia, as they are placed ainong the above-named spines, in 

 the thickening of their wall, seern to coalesce with these, whereby sometimes they ap- 

 pear to be irregularly mucronate. Their frontside, above the aperture, is perforated 

 by pores. Besides the great spathulate avicularia, with their decumbent aperture, 

 which are irregularly dispersed among the zooecia, smaller ones, of a rounded shape, 

 are to be found on the vertical sides of the zooecia. 



The occurrence of this species, in the Floriclan sea, seems not to be frequent, as 

 only a few specimens were taken by Pourtales. In its worn condition, it is very diffi- 

 cult to recognize. 



Of the genus Eschara, in the PouRTALES-collections we lind two wellgroAvn spe- 

 cimens of the Lepralian state 2 ) of the well-known 



Eschara cervicornis (Pl. XII, figs. 230 and 231). 



It was ffrowing on a Coral from 116 and on a fragment of a Cidaris-shell from 



ört O 



183 fathoms. The colonies are white, shining, the zooecia of a uniform thickness, with 

 the pores in a single row along their own margin as well as along the basal margin 

 of the avicularium (lig. 230). The breadth of the zooecial aperture may be measured 

 to about 0,19 mm. Sometimes, in the distal part of its margin, two bristles are to 

 be seen. 



In my former papers I have shown, how many intermediate forms connect this 

 species with the Eschara (Lepralia) verrucosa; and, as above remarked, the Escharella 

 Landsborovii in another way connects it with the Myriozoidan type. Through its rai- 

 sing of the median avicularium, sometimes into the form of a highly developed rost- 

 rum, as well as through the form of its priinary zooecial aperture, the genus Eschara, 

 however, still nearer approaches to the Discoporidan type. And, indeed, its most essen- 

 tial character, for the distinction from the Discoporidan family, as formerly consti- 

 tuted 3 ), was the difference in the shape of the secondary zooecial aperture, which then 

 doubtlessly was too highly estimated. Now, as from the developmental changes of the 



') Öfvers. Vet. Akad. Förli. 1867, Bill., p. 125. 



2 ) Öfvers. Vet. Akad. Pörh. 1867, Bih., pp. 23 and 150. 



3 ) Öfvers. Vet. Akad. Pörh. 1867, Bih., p. 22 at C. 



