REPOET OX THE HYDROIDA. 
15 
events it does not, as might be supposed, indicate a difference of sex, ova being present 
in both forms. 
Like most of the examples of Hcilecium contained in the collection, the present 
species had its soft parts fairly well preserved, so that the general form of the liydrantlis 
could be delineated while the germinal vesicle and spot were quite distinct in the ova. 
The collection contained no example of a colony with male gonosome. 
Halecium cymiforme, n. sp. (PI. VII. figs. 1-5). 
Tropliosome . — Hydrocaulus a very slender sub-dichotomously branched stem, which 
springs from a bundle of creeping tubular filaments. Hydrophores borne on the summits 
of the branches, and with a moderately wide, reflexed limbus. 
Gonosome . — Gonangia (male ?) pyriform, compressed, borne like the hydrophores on 
the summits of the branches, and having their contents crowned with a cap which 
disappears as the gonophore advances towards maturity. 
Locality . — Station 312, Port Famine, Patagonia; lat. 53° 37' 30" S., long. 70° 56' 0" 
W.; depth, 9 fathoms. 
Halecium cymiforme presents a multitude of very slender branches of uniform 
thickness, each springing from a point near the distal end of its predecessor, the w T hole 
forming a combination not unlike what may be seen in certain forms of the definite 
inflorescence known to botanists as a cyme. Usually two small branches are given off 
close to one another near to the distal end of the preceding one, thus giving a dicho- 
tomous character to the ramification. 
The hydrorhizal portion of the specimen examined consisted of numerous tubular 
filaments, which ran in close apposition to one another along the stems and branches of 
another Hydroid, giving off from distance to distance their slender stems, which soon 
began to multiply by ramification, and which scarcely differed in diameter from the 
hydrorhizal filaments from which they sprang. The branches are provided with a few 
annulations at their origin, and occasionally a few in the course of their length; but they 
present no true joints, and we must regard the entire hydrocaulus as composed of a 
succession of internodes, each springing lateral^ from its predecessor, instead of being in 
direct continuation with it. The ramification of Halecium cymiforme is thus very similar 
to that which occurs in Halecium dichotomum. The distal extremity of every internode 
or segment of the ramification is free, and becomes in some cases continued into a 
hydrophore, w hil e in others it carries a gonangium. 
The hydrophores are represented by the free ends of the segments crowned by a 
lim bus whose extreme rim is usually reflexed, and are frequently continued by one or two 
accessory hydrophores. The wreath of brilliant points, by which the limbus of the hydro- 
phore is in the genus Halecium almost universally ornamented, cannot here be detected. 
