THE FAN TUBULIPORA. 227 TUBULTPORA FLABELLARIS. June 2i. — At Hele, in a dark tide-pool between overhanging rocks, I gathered a frond of 'Nitophyllum laceratuin, on which were several patches of a pretty- zoophyte, evidently identical with the Tuhulijwra filahellaris of Fabricius, which though known to inhabit the shores of Europe from Greenland to the Mediterranean, has been* only lately recognised as a British species by Mr. W. Thompson, who found it on the North coast of Ireland. It consists of a great number of long, slender, cylindrical tubes of pellucid coral or shelly substance, set side by side and over- lapping each other on the frond of the sea-weed, to which they adhere for a portion of their length, and then curve upward so as to be free at their terminal portions. The tubes are somewhat crowded, but diverge from each other, so as to form a resemblance to a curling feather. The margins of the tubes are oblique in some cases, in others quite transverse ; and the edges are slightly expanded. The exterior of the tube is set with many annular ridges, which are evidently the expanded rims of the tube at various periods of its growth ; the new shelly matter being deposited not from the very edge, but from a ring a little way within it, so as to leave the narrow expanded lip projecting as a permanent ridge, in a manner com- mon in many shells. The walls of the tubes are sparsely studded with minute round grains, like those of Crisia ; and similar ones are found far more thickly in the shapeless mass of shelly matter that envelopes the bases of some of the tubes, connecting them like a web.
