of the Royal Physical Society. 339 



the collecting- bottle, they were seen to be attached to the buc- 

 cal papillae of small coryneform polyps, and proved to be the 

 greatly enlarged peduncles of fully-developed niedusoids. 



The polyps of the Coryne were colourless, with ten or twelve 

 short capitate tentacles ; tKe polyp-stalks smooth, about a 

 quarter of an inch long, springing from a creeping polypary ; 

 the medusoids colourless, long, cylindrical, with four lateral 

 canals and four rudimentary tentacles, represented by small 

 bulbs containing brown pigment ; the peduncle, pyriform, in- 

 flated, — nearly filling the cavity of the sub-umbrella ; the um- 

 brella without thread-cells, wrinkled on its external surface. 



Further observation showed that the peduncle of the medu- 

 soid, though still attached to the Coryne by a thick fleshy pro- 

 cess, had become little else than a sac of spermatozoa, which 

 were secreted between its ectoderm and endoderm. These mem- 

 branes were continuous with each other at the mouth, where 

 they were furnished with a ring of thread-cells. 



In several cases the bodies of the Corynes had lost their 

 tentacles, and were reduced by absorption to mere tubercles (fig. 

 5, a), the medusoids still remaining firmly attached; hence it is 

 possible that the medusoids of this Coryne never become free. 



In the " Annales des Sciences Naturelles," vol. xv., 2d series, 

 Lowen has described a Coryne (Syncoryne ramosa) bearing a 

 fixed medusoid, strongly resembling the above, with the ex- 

 ception that the peduncle contained ova instead of spermato- 

 zoa. I was at first led to believe that my Coryne was the 

 male polypary of Lowen' s female ; but the wrinkled corallum 

 or polypidom of the latter, and the presence of thread-cells on 

 the umbrella of its medusoid, indicate that the species, although 

 similar, are distinct. 



The " Syncoryne ramosa (Ehr.)" of Lowen, differs, I think, 

 altogether from the Coryne ramosa described by Johnston 

 as " bipollicaris, hyalina, ramosa, ramulis basi contractis, 

 capitulis valde elongatis, prole in capitulo sparsa, (Ehr.)" (a 

 large branched Coryne with a ringed corallum, found in the 

 Firth of Forth, and remarkable for the length of its cylindri- 

 cal polyps, and the number of ovisacs or sperm-sacs scattered 

 amongst its tentacles), and will have to be referred to a new 

 species. 



