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Show 18 DR. J. S. BOWERBANK ON HYALONEMA. MIRABILE. [Jail. 10, 4. On Hyalonema mirabile. By J. S. B O W E R B A N K , LL.D., F.R.S., &c. (Plates IV. & V.) Hyalonema was named and described by Dr. J. E. Gray in the Society's 'Proceedings' for 1835, p. 63, from a specimen sent from China to the India House in London, under the name of the Glass Plant, and subsequently in a paper published in the Society's ' Proceedings' for 1857, p. 279, entitled "Synopsis of the Families and Genera of Axiferous Zoophytes or Barked Corals." The author designates it as a Coral, and describes it as follows :- "Family 1. HYALONEMADJJ*. " Coral subcylindrical, rather attenuated, and immersed in sponge. Axis in the form of numerous elongated, slender, filiform, siliceous fibres, extending from end to end of the Coral, and slightly twisted together like a rope. Bark fleshy, granular, strengthened with short cylindrical spicula; polypiferous cells scattered, rather produced, wart-like, with a flat radiated tip. " 1. HYALONEMA, Gray. " The character of the family. "1. HYALONEMA MIRABILIS. B.M. "Hyalonema mirabilis, Gray, Syn. B.M. 1830, 118. "Hyalonema sieboldii, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1835, 63; Dana, Expedition, 642. "Japan (Sir Hans Sloaae ; Siebold). " The Coral, as it is usually seen, consists of three distinct portions of very different texture and appearance-the axis, bark, and the sponge." The author then proceeds to describe each of these parts in detail, and in page 282 he writes, " The sponge to which it is attached has no real connexion with the Coral, except as affording it the means of support, and is of the common structure." And subsequently he states it as his opinion that " There can be no doubt, after the examination of the two specimens in the British Museum, one in my own collection, one in Paris, and several in the Leyden Museum, that the bark evidently belongs to the axis, and that this Coral is a true Zoophyte, and not a sponge covered with a parasitic Zoophyte, as it is regarded by M. Valenciennes (see Milne-Edwards British Corals, 81)." In the first sentence quoted the author asserts that the sponge is a part of the Coral; in the commencement of the following paragraphs he decidedly denies the connexion existing between them ; but I presume that the latter is the real opinion of the author In the 'Annals and Magazine' for October, 1866, Dr Gray corrects |
