18 
CRUISE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
2 inches. The walls are of the most delicate tissue, 
recalling spun glass, and resembling finest transparent 
lace, or rather Shetland wool work. The lower end 
is surrounded by an upturned fringe of long, lustrous, 
glassy fibres, and the wide end, after giving off from 
its edge a fluted lacy frill, is closed by a delicate lid o f 
open network. Hitherto these beautiful objects have 
only been obtained from the seas of the Philippine 
Islands, where they live buried in the mud at the 
depth of 100 fathoms ; so those obtained then were 
considered a most interesting addition to the fauna 
of Europe. 
Our last cast of the trawl before reaching Gibraltar 
was to the depth of 2125 fathoms; the result was 
very satisfactory. A number of things came up- — star- 
fish mainly, and holothurids ; but among them was 
one species of great interest, historical as well as zoo- 
logical, the clustered sea-polyp, Umbellularia Green - 
landica; twelve gigantic alcyonarian polyps, each with 
eight long fringed arms terminating in a close cluster 
on a stem 3 feet high. Two specimens of this fine 
species were brought from the coast of Greenland 
early in the last century ; somehow these were 
lost, and for a century the animal was never seen. 
A year or two since two were taken by the Swedish 
scientific expedition, and this obtained by us must 
be considered as the third specimen of this rare 
marine animal. 
On the evening of the 17th January we passed 
