centrifugal or horizontal position, in developing the pileus and hymenium; but the conditions being unfavourable to the formation of reproductive organs, the amount of unexpended growing force caused the hyphae to push their way right through the pileus, probably in the direction of some small chink admitting a faint glimmer of light, and possibly with the intention of forming a second pileus above the first, if they could reach a position more open to the light.

Such an application of unexpended energy is well known in phanerogamic plants. The most familiar instance which occurs to me may be found in certain forms of Polyanthus, in which a second corolla is formed, not through the replacement of anthers by petals, as in ordinary double flowers, but by the superfluity of petal-forming energy.

But in the case of the Fungus, the growth of the hyphæ through the atrophied pileus is even more remarkable, and approaches the result of instinct. Mr. Francis Darwin has written some interesting papers on instinct in plants, and has shown that the parallelism between plants and animals is, in many cases, very striking. I must admit that the tubercles on the pileus of the Fungus from the dark hole in Lime Street seem to me almost to suggest a vegetative effort in the hypha, which, if it could express itself in words, would say

"What is the use of setting to work to form spores down here in the dark; let us go up higher, and see if we can find more light."

Mr. Samuel Butler, who regards the activities of life as being directed by memory, and affirms that cells, animal or vegetable, always act as they did on the last occasion when they were under similiar conditions, would say that the Fungus grew as it had grown before under like circumstances. I do not recollect having met with a similar case. Agaricus fusipes, if it be that, is very rare near Liverpool. I met with it for the first time this season in Knowsley Park.

But, in fact, Fungi so highly differentiated as the Agaricini rarely grow in darkness.

It is needless for me to say that it is no capricious form. The veteran Mycologist, ELIAS FRIES, figures an Agariform Fungus, Agaricus (Armillaria) denigratus, not known as a British species, with a second pileus and stem growing out of the first; and he calls it a freak of nature, Lusus naturæ. But I think there is a more satisfactory way of accounting for the odd phenomenon.

The species of Armillaria often spring up very close together, and the surface of the pileus, in certain states of the weather, is very adhesive; the slime with which the pileus is covered being, in fact, almost glutinous. In the case figured by Fries, the pileus of a strong growing specimen had become firmly attached to the pileus of a weaker and more diminutive neighbour; and the stronger one, not being inclined, or rather, not being able, to wait for the little one, fairly tore it up by the roots, and hoisted it aloft topsyturvy, stem uppermost! The substances of the two pilei appear to have coalesced.

HYDROCORALLINE.

BY THE REV. H. H. HIGGINS, M.A.

The great sub-kingdom of Polypes, Calenterata, is divided into two sections; in the former of which, Hydrozoa, the animals possess a body-cavity which is quite simple, like a pouch; whilst in the latter, Actinozoa, the body-cavity is divided into compartments by partitions, radiating like the spokes of a wheel.

For a long time it was thought that all the hydra-like polypes in the first section were small, as the Hydra itself, or as in the Zoophytes. Then it was found that in the Jellyfish, the suspended part, manubrium, was a hydra-like polype, and that the great umbrella of jelly was a swimming

apparatus, carrying about the polype to get its food and to propagate its kind. So it was seen that the hydra-like polypes were not all of them by any means small things; but still it was thought they were all of them flabby, or soft, or, at all events, flexible, like the Zoophytes; and that they could not have hard, stony skeletons, such as the branching and rocky corals. This distinction also had to be given up, and the story of its fall is rather a curious

one.

There is a coral known to seafaring men as Sea-ginger, growing often in immense clusters, and common in all hot seas. Now, it was quite certain that this coral was the skeleton of a vast assemblage of polypes; but nobody had seen them. It was, I believe, Professor Alexander Agassiz who first had a good sight of them, and he found that they were hydra-like polypes; but they were very small, and extremely shy of being looked at. My own best efforts to observe them were in vain, though I had the coral alive in aquaria for some time in the West Indies.

Mr. Moseley, one of the naturalists on board the Challenger, was enabled to examine a kind of Sea-ginger, Millepora nodosa, of which I exhibit a specimen. In this coral the polypes proved to be larger and less bashful; and his discovery of their true character is, perhaps, one of the most brilliant achievements in biology accomplished during the voyage of the Challenger.

The quasi individuals, for in some of these lower forms. of life individuality is very promiscuous, are of two kinds. There is a larger central zoöid which is unbranched, short, and stout, and has a mouth and a body-cavity. Surrounding the central zoöid are five or more tall, slender, branched zoöids, which have neither mouth nor body-cavity; their office is that of purveyors; they capture small nutritious particles, and by bending themselves down, as a swan bends

its neck, they deliver the food to the central zoöid, which swallows it for the good of the community.

The tentacles of the common Hydra do much the same kind of thing; the chief point of interest in the Millepose coral being the admirably solid skeleton secreted, and the great differentiation of parts for special functions in so lowly a form of life. The stony corals formed by polypes like the Hydra, are now called Hydrocoralline, and include some of the most exquisite forms, combined with the most delicate and beautiful colours, to be found in the whole of the Coelenterate sub-kingdom.

The recent acquisition by the Liverpool Museum of some Hydrocoralline of altogether unusual beauty and perfection, has induced me to attempt to show, in a plain way, that they are something more than objects pretty to see. The specimens illustrate, probably, the highest point of development of which the Hydroid type is capable, and where the line stops short. They are of the type of the common Hydra of our ditches and ponds. It is not from amongst these elegant and highly ornate forms that further development proceeds, and that the higher group of corals with rayed polypes is derived. Mr. Wallace remarks that so perfect a structure as the eye has been developed on two or three distinct lines.

The Hydrocoralline are comparatively of recent origin, being, probably, not more ancient than the Tertiary period; whilst the corals of the rayed polypes are known from the Silurian. The lower type seems to spring from the higher, and not the higher from the lower; or the stocks may have been distinct from the time of the Graptolites in the Cambrian.

Mr. T. J. MOORE exhibited the following drawings and recent additions to the Free Public Museum :—

A coloured drawing, by Mr. John Chard, Museum Draughtsman, taken from a specimen of the Dolphin (Del

phinus delphis, Linnæus), stranded at New Brighton in February last; the skeleton of which had been purchased for the Museum. This Cetacean has not been previously recorded as occurring in the neighbourhood of Liverpool, and is an important addition to the local Fauna. The specimen would probably not have been captured, but that it had recently lost its tail, which had been completely and cleanly severed from the body, probably by the fan of some passing screw steamship, with which the creature had unwittingly come in contact.

A small drawing, by Commander W. E. Cookson, R.N., H.M.S. Eagle, stationed in the Mersey, of one of the remarkable Giant Tortoises, taken by him at the Galapagos Islands, viz., Testudo Abingdonii. Science is indebted to Commander Cookson for the first specimen of this species ever brought to Europe, as well as for examples of other species of these rapidly decreasing species, and for valuable information respecting them, as recorded in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1876, pp. 520-526; and in Dr. Günther's Catalogue of The Gigantic Land-Tortoises (living and extinct) in the Collection of the British Museum; quarto, 1877.

A collection of Moa Bones (Dinornis), forming a nearly complete skeleton of one of these extinct gigantic birds of New Zealand, presented by Dr. Millen Coughtrey, Corresponding Member.

Mr. T. J. MOORE then read the following communications recently received by him from Mr. E. Dukinfield Jones, Corresponding Member of the Society, and exhibited the beautiful drawings, as well as the specimens, mentioned therein; and expressed the hope that Mr. Jones would shortly send perfect specimens of all the other insects spoken of, in order that they may be identified.

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