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Show 468 MR. E. T. BROWNE oN [Mar. 1?, Plymouth.-Garstang (1894) has recorded this medusa for Plymouth. It was taken on a few occasions during April 1894. Mr. E. J. Allen kindly sent m e five specimens alive, on March 19th, 1895. Two possessed a single tentacle and three had two tentacles. Medusa-buds were present at the base of the tentacles in some of the specimens. The five specimens showed a great variation in colour: one had the endoderm of both tentacles of a pinkish colour; two specimens had the mouth, tentacle-bulbs, and medusa-buds or a brilliant crimson colour, and another specimen with the same parts coloured reddish orange. One specimen showed the mouth and tentacle-bulbs of a crimson colour and the medusa-buds colourless. DISTRIBUTION :- Hydroid Form. North America, Massachusetts Bay, Agassiz. Medusoid Form. Iceland, Steenstrup. Norway, Sars. Heligoland, Bbhm. France, Granville, Haeckel. Scotland-St. Andrews, Craivford. England-Plymouth, Garstang and Allen. Isle of Man, Browne. Ireland-Dublin Coast, Greene. Valencia Island, E. T. B. Fam. HYDROLARIDJE. LAR SABELLARUM, Gosse. (Plate XVI. figs. 3, 4.) Hydroid form. Lar sabellarum, Gosse (1857); Hincks * (1872); Allman (1872). Medusoid Form. Willsia stellata, Forbes (1848); Cocks (1849); Peach (1849); Gosse (1853). Willia stellata, Agassiz (1862); Haeckel (1879); M'lntosh (1890) ; Garstang (1894). The remarkable hydroid Lar sabellarum was first described by Gosse (1857) from a colony, found growing upon the tube of a Sabella, in an aquarium. The odd appearance of the hydroid and the absence of gonopbores justified Allman's statement, " W e are almost tempted to regard it as an abnormal condition of some other form." Fifteen years after its first appearance in Gosse's aquarium another colony was dredged by Hincks at Ilfracombe. Hincks (1872) not only confirms the description given by Gosse, but describes the reproduction in the following words :- " The fertile polypites of Lar are distributed along the creeping stolon, amongst the alimentary zooids, and bear a strong general resemblance to those of Hydractinia. They are slender, somewhat filiform bodies, destitute of tentacula, and terminated at the free extremity by a globular enlargement, in which many thread-celli are imbedded; they are generally inferior in size to the alimentary |
