Alcyonaria G 29 



As originally established, with its designated type, it is identical with 

 Capnella Kiikenthal,^ who described my species as C. rugosa. 



Capnella has been made to include several other Indo-Pacific species, 

 which should be referred to Eunephthya. Among these are E. spicata (May) 

 from Zanzibar; E. gilchristi (Thomson) South Africa, 40 fathoms; E. fungiformis. 

 E. thyrsoidea Verrill, was from 20 fathoms, off False bay, Cape of Good Hope. 



Unfortunately Kukenthal applied the name Eunephthya to the second 

 species mentioned by me, and then extended it to include numerous other 

 Arctic species belonging to the genera Gersemia Mar., Duva and Drifa Danielssen, 

 etc. 



My E. glomerata, before Ktikenthal's " emendation," had already been 

 placed in two new genera by Danielssen, viz., Drifa and Gersemiopsis. Thus 

 even if E. thyrsoidea had not been named by me as the type, it would have 

 become so automatically by reason of the placing of E. glomerata in a new 

 genus by Danielssen, in 1887, long before Capnella was expanded. 



ParaspoJigodes" has been used for these various northern forms by May 

 (1898), and bj^ others. It is a heterogenous group, practically a synonym of 

 Eunethphya Kukenthal, in its extended use, and preceded by eight generic names 

 given by Danielssen and others, and therefore it should be dropped for all of 

 our northern genera. Kukenthal described and figured a new species, (P. 

 crassa, p. 132, pi. viii, fis. 26, 27) which is apparently generically distinct from 

 any of our forms, and might be considered the type of his restricted genus. 



Molander (op. cit. 1915) judiciously adopted Gersemia (it being prior to 

 Voeringia Dan.) for the group typified by G..fruticosa, but he still retained 

 Eunephthya to include the glomerata group (Drifa), together with the florida- 

 group, named Duva by Danielssen. I beheve that these two groups should be 

 separated as genera, but Eunephthya should not be used for either of them. 



Eunephthya thyrsoidea Verrill. 

 Plate V; Figs. 1, la. Type. 



This was briefly described by me in 1865, in Proc. Essex. Inst., Salem, Mass., 

 Vol. IV, p. 151, and more fully, with some figures, in the same volume (p. 192, 

 figs. 8-8b); and later, in 1869, the characteristic spicules were described with 

 their measurements. The larger original specimens seem to have been destroyed 

 in the great Chicago fire.^ 



However I still have microscopical preparations from the type-specimen, 

 including the spicules now figured. I also have in my collection, a small co- 

 type, in good preservation. This, so far as I know, is the only one remammg. 

 This specimen is 25 mm. high and 10 mm. broad. The naked stalk occupies 

 about half the height. The whole forms a thyrsoid or club-shaped polypidom. 

 The polypiferous part is thyrsiform, with about a dozen crowded, short, clavate 

 larger branches, entirely covered by the polyps, which are closely crowded, 

 thirty to forty standing on each branch; below these there are several small 

 or incipient branches with three to ten polyps, and some polyps stand singly 

 or in pairs on the upper part of the stem, and, also, sometimes on the branches. 



■It does not agree with typical Capnella Gray (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. Vol. Ill, p. 129 1869), type 

 Ammothea imbricata Edw. Gray says the outer surface is studded with srnall flat, smooth, irregular- 

 shaped spicules and that the cells are "campanulate slightly eighHobed also that the polyps are retrac- 

 tile, all of which are very different in Eunephthya (typical). 



-Kukenthal, Alcyonaceen von Ternate, p. 171, 1896. ,,.,t ^uju * j 



'Most of the collections ot the North Pacific Exploring Expedition of which I wrote had been returned 

 to Dr. Wm. Stimpson, naturalist of the Expedition, and then Director of the Chicago Museum, before 

 that Museum was burned with all its valuable collections. A few duplicates were previously deposited 

 in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, where they are still preserved. Among them are co-types ol 

 the large Spongodes gigantea and S. capitata, and a few other Alcyonaria, but not A. thyrsoidea. 



