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tropical America, for I find it described neither by Smith nor by 
any other English author.” The conjecture of Grunow, perhaps 
not unreasonable under the circumstances, becomes untenable from 
the fact of the form having been discovered in two localities 
altogether removed from the suspicion of foreign influences. 
Professor E. Perceval Wright exhibited preparations illustrative 
of the minute structure of a new genus and species of Gorgoniadae, 
which he designated Keratoisis Grayii. This species had been 
dredged in deep water off the coast near Lisbon, and had been 
given to him for description by his friend Professor Bocage. The 
so-called “barky layer” (coenenchyma) is well developed, and 
contains a large number of calcareous spicules, which form a 
roughened tissue over the whole surface of both stem and polyps. 
The spicules forming the calyx around the polypes are large and 
fusiform, and some nine or ten very long ones form a sheath 
around the polyp, projecting considerably beyond it when the polyp 
is contracted. Those in the barky layer are much smaller, being 
longer than broad, and slightly irregular. None like them are 
figured in Kolliker’s ‘ leones.’ A third form of spicule, of the 
same general type as that met with in Isis hippuris, is met with in 
the body-layer of the polyp. 
Dr. John Barker drew attention to a copious supply of an alga, 
which appeared to be the Caetospficerium Kutzingianum (Nag.), 
the remarkable circumstance in connection with these specimens 
being that the clusters or groups of cells forming the families, 
besides being more or less lobate or constricted, or otherwise 
presenting irregular departure from the orbicular form, likewise 
showed a distinct but very gentle independent motion of an oscil- 
latory or indeterminate side-to-side character, and not seemingly 
attributable to outward causes, and in some measure giving the 
idea of the existence of cilia ; but, as might be anticipated, no 
such was evident on the closest inspection. It would be hard to 
say to what this agitated, slow, and indeterminate movement could 
be attributed. Dr. Barker was himself inclined to see in the 
lobate or more or less constricted outline of the families or groups 
a certain amount of spiral arrangement of, as it were, secondary 
accessions to a primary family, obscurely resembling that of a 
Botalina, and hence pointing to some distinction from Coelo- 
sphaerium. 
Mr. Archer was disposed to think the plant now shown by Dr. 
Barker could be none other than Coelospha-rium Kutzingianum 
(Nag.), notwithstanding that Nageli seemed to think it necessary, 
in depicting his plant, to begin by drawing an absolute circle, as 
if with a pair of compasses. For some time after Mr. Archer had 
seen Prof. Nageli’s figure he had been wondering why we did not 
encounter it in our waters ; but it by and by occurred to him that 
the plant with which he had been tolerably familiar, though it 
does not appear to be frequent, could be none other than the 
Coelosphaerium of Nageli. He was not himself able to recognise 
any spirality m Dr. Barker’s specimens, and in this opinion Mr. 
