ON PHORONIS OVAL IS, STRETHILL WRIGHT. 
115 
On Phoronis ovalis, Strethill Wright. 
By 
Sidney F. Haimci’, Sc.D., I.K.S., 
Keeper of Zoology in tlie British Museum (Natural History). 
{Published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.) 
With Plates 7, 8, and 9. 
Introduction. 
In 1913 Miss R. E. Roper, who was working with Professor 
A. Meek at the Polvzoa of the Northumberland coast, was 
kind enough to send to the British Museum an empty shell 
of Neptunea antiqua bearing specimens of Alcyo- 
nidium mammil latum, Alder. On examining the surface 
of the shell on which this Polyzoon was growing, a curiously 
eroded appearance was noticed. In order to ascertain the 
meaning of this appearance, a fragment of the shell was 
decalcified ; and it was at once obvious that the substance of 
the shell was traversed by the burrows of numerous boring 
animals. A few of these belonged either to the Sponge, 
Cl ion a, or to a small Poly chaste, probably Polydora 
ciliata. The great majority of them belonged, however, to a 
minute species of Phoronis, which has proved to correspond 
closely with the description of P. ovalis given by Strethill 
Wright (1856 1 , 1856 2 ) in the papers in which the genus 
Phoronis was established. The Neptunea which is here 
considered was obtained to the south-east of St. Mary’s Island, 
off the Northumberland coast, in 16 fathoms ; and it has 
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