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Show 902 DR. BOWERBANK ON HYALONEMA LUSITANICUM. [Nov. 28, the most important portion of his body, his basal spongeous mass, turned him upside down, so that his so-called polypes were situated at his supposed base, instead of at the upper part of his spiral column, and then turned him adrift a denizen of the wide ocean. With this imaginary constitution the poor animal could no longer be considered a Hyalonema; but this difficulty was readily to be got over, and the Doctor, with his usual facility in such operations, soon devised a new genus, founded on the imaginary characters he had himself created, which he has denominated Hyalothrix, and which he thus characterizes:- " The polypes with forty tentacles in several concentric series, the outer series the largest. The axis, covered to the very base with the polype, bearing bark strengthened with cylindrical filiform siliceous spicules, and with a smooth external coat without any imbedded granules." Having thus imagined his animal, and fitted him with a new genus, the Doctor, with an artless simplicity that is really very charming, observes, " This genus is at once distinguished from Hyalonema by the coral not living with its base immersed in a sponge. It lives evidently free; but how it keeps itself in an erect position so that all the polypes round the axis may obtain food is yet to be discovered." But alas for the stability of this ingenious natural-history romance ! The irresistible logic of facts has destroyed the whole edifice ; for scarcely could the ink have dried with which Dr. Gray's imaginations were printed before Prof. Bocage announced that he had at last obtained a specimen of his H. lusitanicum with the basal sponge embracing the proximal uncovered end of the spiral column in the same manner as in the Japanese specimens. All reasoning upon Dr. Gray's imaginary animal now becomes superfluous, and we have only to deal with Prof. Bocage's specimens of Hyalonema lusitanicum. Shortly after I had learned from Dr. Gray that Prof. Bocage had acquired a specimen of his species with the basal sponge adhering to it, I wrote to him on the subject, enclosing a small portion of the spongeous base of m y specimen of H. mirabile, figured in the • Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' Part 1, Pl. IV. f. 2, for the year 1867, that he might compare its organic structures with those of the basal sponge of his II. lusitanicum, and begging the favour of a small portion of the basal sponge of his specimen. To this request he replied with much kindness and liberality, enclosing a piece of the sponge 4 lines in length by about 3 in width-a quantity, as it will be seen, amply sufficient to demonstrate accurately the structural characters and relations of the two species. The fragment of sponge is apparently from the surface of the specimen, as it is enveloped in the remains of a rather stout brown membrane. After examining the specimen in water, I disintegrated about half of it, and mounted the spicula in Canada balsam, and then mounted the remaining portion in the same material, in the state in which I had received it. The results of m y examinations of it were most satisfactory. In the |
