﻿136 LEIDY ON THE MARINE INVERTEBRATE FAUNA OF 



rounded with a many-lobed head, and having attached to the sides numerous ovigerous 

 capsules, of various sizes, containing from one to five ova. Length of polypes up to 

 one-fourth of an inch. Abundant at Point Judith and at Beesley's Point, investing 

 the shells occupied by the hermit crabs. 



EUCORYNE, Leidy. Polypidom, a rooted, branching, corneous tube with a soft 

 axis. Polypes terminating the branches of the polypidom, non-retractile, clavate, 

 furnished with a circle of long, cylindrical tentaculge, and one or more circles of short 

 tentaculge with globular tips. 



5. Eucoryne elegans, Leidy. (PI. X. figs. 1-5.) Polypidom alternately branch- 

 in" 1 , adhering by a coarse reticular root, and growing in profuse branches three or four 

 inches in length ; trunk and branches shining black, and annulated at their origin ; 

 branchlets yellow, and annulated at their origin and termination. Polypes up to 

 three-fourths of a line long, clavate, translucent white, with the dilated portion encircled 

 with two red bands. Tentaculge colorless, in two or three circles : first or basal 

 circle twelve in number, filiform, as long or longer than the body; second and third 

 circles of six in each, cylindrical and ending in globular extremities. Quite abundant 

 at Point Judith, adhering to corallines, and other fuci, mytili, &c, below low tide. 



Gsertner,* Van Beneden,f Hassal,J and Johnston§ represent Coryne as having the 

 tentaculge terminating in globular extremities and irregularly distributed, while 

 Eudendrium is represented as possessing only a circle of filiform tentaculae. Such 

 being the case, the polype, above described, would characterise a genus intermediate 

 to Coryne and Eudendrium. Gosse|| has, however, represented two polypes, which 

 he calls Coryne cerberus and Coryne stauridiai, each having a circle of simply filiform 

 tentaculge, and a second of those with globular tips. As an examination of Eucoryne 

 elegans shows the two kinds of tentaculae to have a different arrangement in structure, 

 the two species just named either do not belong to the genus Coryne, or all the species 

 of the latter possess filiform tentaculge, and others with globular tips, which I suspect 

 actually to be the case, when the genus Eucoryne would cease to exist. 



Eucoryne elegans is an exceedingly beautiful object, on account of the profuseness 

 of its developement, its graceful branching, and varied coloring. I observed many 

 bunches four inches in length, but the main branches do not measure more than three 

 inches ; the addition of length in the branches, being due to the successive origin of 

 the latter from stems of corallines, or other elevated objects of attachment. 



The root of the polypidom is a coarse, tortuous, black fibre, reticulated upon the ob- 

 ject of attachment. Sometimes an aseidia is imprisoned by the net-work, but more 

 frequently it embraces the stems of corallines, or entangles masses of minute mytili. 



* Pallas, Spicilegia Zoologica. -j- Rech. sur l'embryol. dee Tubulaires. 



J Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist. vol. vii. § A History of the British Zoophytes. 

 J| A Naturalist's Rambles on the Devonshire Coast, pi. xiv. figs. 4-6 : pi. xvi. figs. 1-5. 



