86 The Museum Gazette 



in close company with others on a thick flesh-stalk. True 

 Sea Anemones are usually single, each one being attached 

 to a stone, or rock, or shell by its own foot. In the 

 Alcyonium the foot or stalk which fixes the colony to the rock 

 is one common to the whole. The difference is parallel with 

 that between a simple and a compound flower. The Sea 

 Anemone parallels a crocus ; the Alcyonium a sunflower. 

 This similarity, however, shows only that in the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms similar varieties in the modes of growth 

 may be met with, for there is not the slightest doubt that these 

 " animal-flowers " are really animals. 



The structure upon which the polypes are supported is 

 termed the polypes' mass, or polypidum. It is covered by a 

 leathery skin, which is roughened over by its stellated pores 

 like orange-peel. In its substance it is jelly-like or spongy, 

 and netted by tubular fibres and canals which communicate 

 with the polype-cells. 



On many parts of the coast it is so common that scarcely 

 a stone or shell is dredged which does not show some of it. 

 Sometimes its growth forms only a thin encrustation, but more 

 usually it rises up in lobes or finger-like masses of various 

 and very irregular shapes. If the stellate pores are atten- 

 tively examined they will be seen to be marked by eight rays, 

 indicating the number of tentacula of the polype. 



We have noted that these Alcyoniums are classed with 

 corals. They never form any real coral structure, that is, they 

 never convert themselves, or their stalks, into stone. Spiculae 

 of a cystalline stony nature are, however, developed in them 

 at the roots of the tentacula, which they strengthen. In this 

 tendency to secrete lime into their substance they exhibit the 

 same proclivity which in many other corals produces the 

 well-known stony structures. 



No. IV.— The Sea Mats. 



The term " zoophyte " means animal- plant, but phytozoon, 

 or plant-like animal, would be a better one. 



The species here depicted belong to the Polyzoa or Bryozoa ; 



