194 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



the basis of the tentacles and the mouth. The tentacles were twelve in 

 number, of a rich umber brown colour. About one-half of each from the 

 base was marked with five opaque pale-yellow lozenges, and from thence 

 to the top by four bands of the same pale-yellow colour. The brown 

 matter consisted of amorphous, pigment granules, the yellow matter of 

 highly refractive and exceedingly minute molecules, apparently calca- 

 reous. Each tentacle was curved backwards, and resembled the abdomen 

 of a wasp. The pigment could be forced through the top of the tentacle by 

 pressure, indicating an opening at that part. The mouth, instead of being 

 linear, as in the Actinias, tended to assume a quadrangular, or crucial 

 form, though the constantly varying shape of the disc rendered a descrip- 

 tion of it difficult. The stomach was very peculiar, and differed from 



that of the Actinias. It was a flat and 

 obscurely quadrangular sac in transverse 

 section (fig. 1.) Its angles he should de- 

 scribe as superior (a), lateral (6), and in- 

 ferior (c.) The superior angle was con- 

 nected to the parietes of the body by four 

 septa (d), the lateral angles each by one 

 septum (e), and the inferior angle by two 

 septa {/.) These septa were continued 

 downwards, as in the actinias, to the lower 

 extremity of the body, and had their free 

 edges bordered by a convoluted ciliated 

 band, furnished with cnidse, or thread-cells. 

 The stomach and parietes were further con- 

 nected by four intersepta (g), as he should 

 call them — one between each of the lateral 

 and anterior angles of the stomach, and 

 one between each of the lateral and pos- 

 terior angles ; but these intersepta bore no 

 convoluted bands. The septa probably bore 

 ovaries, or sper maries, the intersepta not, in which case the reproductive 

 system of the animal now described agreed in simplicity with that of the 

 polyp of the Alcyonidse, which had only eight septa, each bearing ciliated 

 bands. The upper part of each of the septa and intersepta was perforated 

 by an oval opening, so as to give an uninterrupted passage beneath 

 the tentacles to the circulation of the fluids of the body. By tracing 

 this passage in the Lucernarias, he had come to the conclusion that 

 it was the homologue of the circular canal of the gymnophthalmatous 

 medusa. The attachments of the stomach thus resembled those of the 

 same organ in the other Helianthoid and Alcyonian polyps, but in shape 

 it widely differed from these. In Actinia and Alcj^onia the stomach was a 

 flattened sac, open, and evenly truncated at its lower extremity. In the 

 animal now described the lower border of the stomach curved gently 

 downwards from the superior to the lateral angles (fig. 2, a 6), and from 

 the lateral to the inferior angle it bent deeply and abruptly downwards 



Fig. 1. 



Diagram of transverse section 

 of H. Fultoni : — a, superior angle 

 of stomach ; b b, lateral angles of 

 ditto; c, posterior angle of ditto; 

 dddd, e e, ff, septa ; and, g g g g, 

 intersepta, uniting stomach with 

 parietes. 



