Transactions of the Philosophical and Literary Society of Leeds (Volume 1, PT. 1); Consisting of Papers Read Before the Society. V.1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1837. Excerpt: ... ON ALCYONELLA STAGNORUM; BY THOMAS PRIDGIN TEALE: READ NOVEMBER 13th, 1835. Alcyonella Stagnorum.--Lamarck, ii. 100. Alcyonium Fluviatile.--Bruguiere, Encycl: Meth: Alcyonelle Fluviatile. RasPail Mem: de la Soctete d'Histoire Naturelle, 1828. On the tenth of August, in the present year, Mr. George Matthewman presented me with a large zoophytic mass taken from a pond in his father's garden, at Little Woodhouse, near Leeds, which on examination was found to consist of a horny basis, arranged in tubes, for the most part of a pentagonal form, opening on the surface by pentagonal apertures, and containing a gelatinous substance. When placed in water, it soon exhibited a multitude of polypes projecting from the tubes, each polype consisting of a beautiful expansion of about fifty tentacula, arranged in a complete circle, indented on one side so as to produce the appearance of a double row of tentacula arranged in a horse-shoe form. Not being aware of any polype whose characters agreed with those just described, I referred for information to the works of Natural History within my reach, and the only Zoophyte, to which I could suppose that it approximated, was Alcyonella, of which Lamarck states that the polypiferous mass is composed of subpentagonal tubes, and that the polypes consist of fifteen to twenty straight tentacula arranged around the mouth in a circle incomplete on one side. He further states that he only knows of one species of the genus, and that it had been described and figured by Bruguiere in the Encyclopedic Methodique. On reference to the plate alluded to I found the tentacula represented as being terminated by a rounded head or button. As it is stated by Lamarck that he had had the opportunity of examining the living animal from the pond of P...