REVIEWS. 
——9Ó——— 
THE POLYPS AND CORALS OF THE NonrH Paciric EXPLORING EXPE- 
DITION.* — Professor Verrill here describes, with numerous figures by Dr. 
Stimpson, all the Polyps and Corals collected, with notes on their colors 
appearance in life, by Dr. Stimpson, which are new to science. It is 
d 
metrical distribution. An excellent summary of the class of ** Cnidaria,” 
the polyps, or single animals, protruding from the surface. These sea 
pens (so called from the resemblance, in the genus Pennatula, of the 
whole colony to a pen) move freely about in the mud or sand at the 
bottom of the sea. They belong to the most highly organized polyps, the 
order of Alcyonaria, in which the number of tentacles of each polyp is 
juo. to eight. All the above named sea pens are from Hong Kong. 
Of th 
6, the coral stock, and 62 the animal of Muricea divaricata V.; and Fig. 7, 
the animal of an allied coral, Acanthogorgia coccinea V., of which 7a repre- 
sents a top view, with the eight tentacles outspread. All three are from 
Hong Kong. 
Of the soft Alcyoniums, called in England Dead Men's Fingers, which 
x not secret a coral, our author figures the animal of Nepthya thyrsoidea 
V. (Fig. 8, 8a, a polyp), from the Cape of Good Hope; Anthella lineata 
Stimps., Fig. 9; 92, a polyp; 95, one of the tentacles much enlarged, from 
08i 
Hong Kong; and Telesto ramiculosa V. (Fig. 10, polyp-colony; 10a, a 
polyp), from the same 1 ty. An interesting sea Anemone, Sagartia? 
paguri V., was dredged in twenty to thirty fathoms, and D 
said 
Stimpson to be always parasitic on a hermit crab, Diogenes Edwardsii 
of emg Another form, Cancrisocia expansa Stimpson, Fi 
“Is the only genus of Actinidz, except aptum (A. palliata), in which a solid secretion 
is formed is pd basaldisk, In Canerisocia it a concentrically striate structure, the gene 
* Synopsis of Pacific E under Com- 
modore C. Ringgold and Capt. John mana U. S. N., TA HN t6 1856, Collected by Dr. 
Wm. Stimpson, Naturalist to the ipsum By A. E. Verrill. [From the Proceedings of 
the Essex Institute. Vols. 4-6 1866-1869. 8vo,pp. With inde es.] 
