TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 81 



The most beautiful contribution to the British Fauna from the Ork- 

 neys, is a zoophj'te of the family Tubulariadae, the largest known form of 

 its tribe. This beautiful animal is about four inches long, and its stem half 

 an inch in diameter. This stem is rounded, solid, flexible, moving at the 

 will of the animal, and somewhat contractile. It is translucent, of a pink- 

 ish-white colour, lineated with brown longitudinal lines, arranged in pairs. 

 When young, the stem is shorter, and is inclosed in a delicate, brown, 

 corneous tube, which becomes deciduous as the animal grows larger. 

 The lower part of the stem is broader than the upper, and roots in 

 sand by means of a fusiform termination, sending out corneous fila- 

 mentous roots. At the upper extremity the stem becomes suddenly 

 contracted, and the lines terminate ; it then expands into an ovate 

 head, terminating in a long, pyramidal, pink trunk, at the end of which 

 is the mouth. Round the thickest part of the head is placed a row of 

 about forty long, white, uncontractile tentacula, which wave about in 

 all directions, and are not ciliated. Immediately above the circle of 

 tentacula is a circle of about twenty-five ramified orange processes, 

 probably ovarian, having no voluntary motion. Above this the trunk 

 is covered with numerous white tentacula, very much shorter than the 

 outer circle. Within this head is a simple digestive cavity, not ex- 

 tending down so far as the large tentacula. Every other part of the 

 animal is solid, and no part is ciliated. Beautiful and delicate as these 

 animals appear, they are very tenacious of life. They were dredged in 

 considerable numbers, on a sandy bottom, in about ten fathoms' water, 

 at Stromness, Orkney. The position of this animal is between Tubu- 

 laria and Coryne, on the relations of which genera its discovery throws 

 much light, as well as on the polypes in general. The authors pro- 

 pose to consecrate the genus to that great British zoophytist, Ellis, 

 calling it EUisia, and giving the species the appropriate name of Flos 

 maris, as it may well be regarded, from its extreme grace and beauty, 

 as the flower of the British seas. The relations of EUisia to Tubularia 

 may be exhibited by the following diagram : — 



Coryne 



Note. — The EUisia has since proved identical with the Corymorpha nutana 

 of Sars. 



1839. G 



