VAN NAME: SIMPLE ASCIDIANS. 
557 
Form largely dependent on whether the animal is attached singly 
or, as is a common habit in this species, in a crowded group of several 
or many individuals of different sizes. In the former case the body 
may be attached by much of the ventral surface and the branchial 
aperture situated on the dorsal surface slightly back from the anterior 
Text-flg. 32. — • Telhyum parlitum (Stimpson). X 3. 
end; in the latter case the body is usually attached by only a small 
area near the posterior end, and the branchial aperture is situated 
at the anterior end, with the atrial aperture a short distance from 
it on the dorsal surface. When so attached as to grow symmetrically, 
the body is somewhat elongated, tapering anteriorly, and the apertures 
are on low rough prominences, not always conspicuous in contracted 
preserved specimens among the rough excrescences which are com- 
monly found on that part of the body. These may have the form of 
transverse wrinkles w^hich break up into irregular prominences. The 
posterior part of the body is usually less rough. Frequently algae, 
bryozoans, etc., grow upon the surface. 
Color yellowish posteriorly, becoming brown, purplish, or red an- 
teriorly, especially about the apertures, which frequently exhibit the 
striping mentioned in Stimpson's original description. "The tubes 
are very beautifully marked exteriorly by alternating triangular areas 
of white and purple arranged as in the shell of a Balanus; the white 
ones having their bases, and the purple ones their apices, on the margin 
of the apertures" (Stimpson, 1852, p. 231). These colors and mark- 
ings of course fade out in alcoholic specimens. 
Verrill (1871a) thus describes the colors of "Cynthia stellifera sp. 
nov." which was based on flattened specimens of this species from New 
Haven, Conn. "Color of body when living, reddish brown, ferrugi- 
nous or purplish brown, often yellowish toward the margin, the median 
ridge yellowish brown; apertures sometimes bright orange within, 
