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Show 1867.] DR. J. E. GRAY ON ZOANTHIN^. 235 slightly elevated, straight and parallel above, with a thickened edge and sinuous below. PALES CLIFTONI. (Fig. 1, p. 236.) Hab. Western Australia (Mr. Clifton). The bodies are from £ to | inch in diameter; but they vary greatly in length, some being as much as 2 inches long; but the general length seems to be about an inch,-that is to say, of the specimens in spirits; when alive they are probably longer. They are found attached to shells, both isolated and in clusters, and the larger ones are attached to the base of each other, forming a somewhat stellate cluster, as if they were free floating in the sea. In others (the Zoanthi sabuliferi, or Palytheeina) the outer surface of the polypes is hard, crustaceous, and thickened with imbedded grains of sand. This group may be divided into sections by the habit of the animal, some being attached to marine bodies, and others living free. I. Coral free, unattached. 1. S P H E N O P U S , Steenstrup, Overs. Dansk. Vidensk. Selskabs. Forhandl. 1856, p. 37. Sabella, sp., Schroter, Gmelin. The type of this genus is an animal that was long ago figured as a Sabella by Schroter, and named from Schroter's figure Sabella marsupialis by Gmelin. Professor Steenstrup has found the original specimens in spirits, which were collected by Johns, the Moravian missionary, in Tranquebar, and has described them and their anatomy, under the name of Sphenopus marsupialis, in the * Proceedings of the Danish Academy' for 1856. But I am not aware that any other specimen had been collected, until those which were sent to the Liverpool Museum. M. Milne-Edwards evidently has not seen them; for he places the genus Stenopus with the free-bodied, soft-skinned Actinia;, giving a very short account of the animal, evidently extracted from Steenstrup's paper, and without even mentioning the habitat. The body is free, rather variable in shape, but more or less like a small flask ; the upper part is cylindrical, truncated when contracted, with a central opening; the hinder part is more or less compressed and half ovate, the hinder portion in some specimens being truncated or rounded, and in others more or less produced, with a blunt rounded end. The outer surface is hard, formed of agglutinated sand closely imbedded in a thick cartilaginous case. The upper truncated part of the case has some indistinct lines, which are often scarcely to be distinguished, radiating towards the central aperture ; in one of the specimens there are three round sunken pits on each side of the neck of the body, just under the swollen edge of the truncated upper end. In some of the other specimens there are slightly |
