336 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
bear four tubercles, which in some cases are drawn out into ten¬ 
tacles 1 mm. long. 
The aboral tentacles are several times longer than the oral and 
twice as numerous (18-19 aboral, 9-10 oral). 
The hydranths in most cases are erect (fig. 1), but may occasion¬ 
ally droop as in fig. 1 a. The color of the entire hydranth is pale 
red, or pink with darker red gonophores; the stems are light horn- 
colored. 
Habitat. Dredged in 15 fathoms off Marrowstone in Port Town¬ 
send harbor. Mediterranean (Pallas); Mouth of the Elbe (Kirchen- 
pauer); Grand Manan (Stimpson); Nova Scotia (Dawson). 
Corynidae. 
Hydrocaulus branched or unbranched. Hydranths spindle-formed 
or cylindrical, with simple or branched capitate tentacles distributed 
regularly or irregularly and occasionally with a lower whorl of fili¬ 
form tentacles; proboscis conical and short, not distinctly marked 
from the rest of the body. Gonophores medusae or sporophores. 
(Schneider.) 
2. Coryne mirabilis Agassiz. PI. 1, figs. 2, 2a, 2b. 
Sarsia mirabilis Agassiz. Coryne mirabilis Agassiz. Syncoryne gravata 
Hincks. Tubularia stellifera Couth. 
Stem smooth, simple, or slightly branched; hydranths small, 
slender, with sixteen tentacles in the adult stage; gonophores glob¬ 
ular, borne among the tentacles or immediately below them. 
There is extreme difficulty in placing this species in accordance 
with the usual grouping. If the medusa-buds found among the 
tentacles are on the way towards a free adult life, the hydroid 
would be placed unquestionably in the Corynidae. But if they are 
fixed medusae expelling their generative cells while attached to 
the hydroid, they may be placed in the Syncorynidae of Ehrenberg. 
Based on the appearance of the medusa-buds the present species 
might be assigned to the Corynidae, but the number of tentacles 
and the general character of the hydroid indicate a connection with 
the other family. In view of these differences the question natur¬ 
ally arises as to the value of the mere attachment of the gonosome 
as a differential character. The name Corvne was orio-inally coven 
by Gartner, but its limits seem to have been left quite unsettled, for 
