2 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



specimens procured at a depth of 90 fathoms in the Zetlandic Seas by Drs. Gwyn 

 Jeffreys and Merle Norman, which had received further elucidation at the skilled hands 

 of Professor G. 0. Sars,^ as an inhabitant of the still waters in the deeps off the 

 Lofoten Islands. Though it thus fell within the department of Professor Allman, or that 

 of the late lamented Professor Busk (each of whom had arrived at a similar conclusion 

 in regard to its systematic position), yet both most disinterestedly desired that its descrip- 

 tion should remain in my hands. A preliminary account accordingly appeared in the 

 Annals and Magazine of Natural History for November 1882,^ having been previously 

 communicated to the Southampton meeting of the British Association. 



The specimens of this remarkable form were trawled at Station 311 (in the Strait of 

 Magellan), January 11, 1876; lat. 52° 45' 30" S., long. 73° 46' 0" W.; at a depth of 

 245 fathoms ; bottom, blue mud ; temperature at the bottom 46°'0, surface 50°"0 ; 

 specific gravity at the bottom 1 '02454, surface 1*01904. The bag of the trawl in this 

 region was filled, Mr. Murray tells me, with a vast mass of Hemiasters, numerous 

 examples of a Venus, and multitudes of Compound Ascidians, four species of which 

 have been described by Professor Herdman, who also noticed the distinction between 

 Cephalodiscus and the Ascidians. Further, in connection with the habitat of the new 

 form, it is interesting that several peculiar molluscoid rarities had previously been found 

 in the Strait of Magellan by Professor R. 0. Cunningham, naturalist on board H.M.S. 

 " Nassau," such as his Goodsiria coccinea, a long, lobed, rooted fibro-gelatinous mass of 

 a vivid scarlet colour, with the minute flask-shaped animals in circumferential cells, and 

 the equally curious Pyura moUnie, of Blainville. Thus if the Strait be not the head 

 quarters of pecuhar MoUuscoida, it is certainly one of the centres round which many are 

 grouped, including the present new type — perhaps the most remarkable of them all. 



Amongst the branches of the coencecium of Cephalodiscus were a few minute 

 Arachnida, sessile-eyed Crustaceans, fragments of Annelids and sponges, besides many 

 Foraminifera of the Rotulate type, which were chiefly studded on the spines (or filaments)' 

 and other parts. 



' On some Remarkable Forms of Animal Life, Ac, vol. i., 1872, pp. 1-18, Tab. i., ii. 

 2 Ser. 5, vol. i. p. 337. 



