OCR Text |
Show 1867.] DR. J. E. GRAY ON CORALLIUM JOHNSONI. 125 of shell attached with cement, giving the whole the appearance of the true bark, the knots representing the polype-prominences,-and so well done that it deceived an intelligent collector. The same collector brought me a specimen of a coil which had some of the natural bark on the middle part of the specimen ; but the narrow lower end was covered with strips of the bark wound round it in a spiral manner, so that the bark appeared to cover the base of the coil nearly to the end ; but when closely examined, the edges of the strips were distinctly visible. I have seen another specimen in which the coil of spicules was scattered with small pieces of bark, generally containing a single polype, but in two or three cases two polype-cells ; and on the tips of some of the spicules were affixed in the same manner, with cement, a piece of bark containing a polype ; in one or two instances two such pieces were on the same spicule. 6. Additional Note on Corallium, johnsoni. By Dr. J. E. G R A Y , F.R.S., V.P.Z.S., &c In the Proceedings of this Society for 1860 (p. 393, Radiata, pl. xviii.) I described and figured a new species of Coral, which had been discovered by Mr. James Yate Johnson at Madeira, under the name of Corallium johnsoni. The Rev. Henry H. Higgins, an active trustee of the Liverpool Free Museum, has most kindly sent to me for examination a small specimen of a Coral received from Mr. Johnson, from Madeira, which is evidently the same species, showing the coral in its young state. As the specimen is very unlike the old part of the coral that I figured, and also very dissimilar to the young branches of the Corallium rubrum of the Mediterranean, I have had the figure that Mr. Higgins most kindly sent with the specimen reproduced (see fig., p. 126). The great peculiarity of this coral is that the polypes all arise from one surface, and I have no doubt that it grows out horizontally from the rocks, and that they arise from the upper surface of the branches. The polypes also differ from those of the Corallium rubrum of the Mediterranean in being very prominent from the bark, and of an ovate subcylindrical form, marked with longitudinal grooves, which are most distinct near the opening of the. polype-cell. I have little doubt that the above is the true explanation of the specimen ; but Mr. Johnson, who sent the specimen to Liverpool, labelled it "a zoophyte parasitic on a dead coral." The genus Corallium should be divided into three, as follows:- I. CORALLIUM. The polypes slightly elevated from the bark, and scattered on all sides of the branches. |