A history of British star-fishes, and other animals of the class Echinodermata . nd the muscular tunicthin. When dredging on the west coast of Ireland with Thompson, Mr. Ball, and Mr. Hyndman, in the sum-mer of 1840, we took a great number of this handsomespecies, many as large as four inches, and all presenting theexternal characters described above. It appears to berather an apathetic species, and to have scarcely any powerof retracting its suckers ; but this may have been owing toa circumstance which is of no small interest to both zoolo-gist and geologist. The Lough of Killery, in wh
A history of British star-fishes, and other animals of the class Echinodermata . nd the muscular tunicthin. When dredging on the west coast of Ireland with Thompson, Mr. Ball, and Mr. Hyndman, in the sum-mer of 1840, we took a great number of this handsomespecies, many as large as four inches, and all presenting theexternal characters described above. It appears to berather an apathetic species, and to have scarcely any powerof retracting its suckers ; but this may have been owing toa circumstance which is of no small interest to both zoolo-gist and geologist. The Lough of Killery, in which wefound it, is a narrow and long inlet of the sea. To-wards the upper part of it, whilst the under-water is saltand full of truly marine animals, the surface-water is sofresh that our boatmen were used to drink it. The con-sequence was that in drawing the dredge through the layerof fresh water the contained animals were paralysed, andmany observations which we had planned to make uponthem were thus unexpectedly defeated. TANGLE SEA-CUCUMBER 227 110LOTI1URJADJE. PENT TANGLE SEA-CUCUMBER. (itaimaria fucicola. Forbes and Groodsir. Specific Character.—Body ovate, rounded, purple, smooth; tentacula deepbrown, ovate, pinnate, shortly pedunculate; suckers numerous in each avenue,alternate. Holothuriu fucicola, Forbes and Goodsir, Athenaeum, No. (SI8. This species is not uncommon in Bressay Sound, Shet-land, where it is found in seven fathoms water, adheringto the stems of Laminarise. It is about three inches inlength when full grown, and is very smooth. When atrest with its tentacula, which are short, and somewhatclavate or sub-globose in form, exserted, it generally as-sumes an ovate form. It is a sluggish species, and adheresstrongly by means of its suckers, which are closely ar-ranged in five equidistant rows. Its internal structurepresents no peculiarities. There is but one oesophagealsac ; the respiratory trees are moderately developed, andthe generative tubes rather
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