444 
EDITH M. MUSGEAVE. 
“ It floats and swims about freely in the sea, whereas 
corals, corallines, Alcyonia and all that order of beings 
adhere firmly by their bases to submarine substances 
This species . . . has been found in the ocean from the 
coast of Norway to the most remote parts of the Mediter- 
ranean Sea, and not only dragged up in trawls from great 
depths of the sea., but often found floating near the surface.” 
Dr. Shaw, in his ‘ History of Algiei's,’ remarks that they 
afford so great a light in the night to the fishermen that they 
can plainly discover the fish swimming about in various 
depths of the sea. He states that from this extraordinary 
property LinnaBus called this species of sea pen '^Pennatula 
phosphorea,” and remarks : Habitat in Oceano fundum 
illuminans.” 
Of the leaves or pinme of the sea pen Ellis says : 
“ These are evidently designed by Nature to move the 
animal backwards or forwards in the sea, consequently to do 
the office of fins, while at the same time the suckers (auto- 
zooids) or mouths furnished with filaments or claws (tentacles) 
were certainly intended to provide food for its support, for 
notwithstanding what Dr. Linngeus has said in regard to its 
mouth in his ‘System of Nature,^ viz. os baseos commune 
rotundum, I could not, with the aid of the best glasses, 
discover that the point of the base was penetrated in the 
least.” 
Bohadsch (1761) had already denied the existence of a 
basal mouth, and stated that the cavity or sinus, which 
usually exists at the base of the stalk (fig. 13), is merely a 
space caused by the contraction of the axis. 
This assertion is supported by Ellis (p. 430), who makes 
the following statement : 
“ The bone (axis) is fastened to ligaments at both ends, 
which are likewise inserted in both ends of the animal. When 
the ligament at the base is contracted, it forms that sinus at 
a. a. (Ellis, 1764, figs. 1 and 2, pi. xx) which has been taken 
for a mouth by most authors.” 
So convincing, apparently, was the joint denial by 
