Colour brownish white; habit stiff, branches short. This species is at once recognisable by the peculiar oblique position of the mouth--the enormously developed avicularium usually only on one side of the cell, and by the sculpture of the cell--which appears as if it were swathed with broad tapes or bands. The wide spaces left between the bands in front clearly represent the true nature of the fenestrae of other species. It is the only species furnished with elongated setose spines.
6. C. lorica, n. sp.
Cellaria catenulata ? Lamarck.
Cells elongated rhomboidal, truncated at each end. Fenestrae three, large, the lowest the largest, arranged in a triangle. Mouth very large; avicularia wide and strong; two lateral areae on each side, well developed; surface in front with a few indistinct circular spots around the fenestrae, and behind marked with faint longitudinal striae.
Habitat: Bass Strait, 45 fathoms.
Colour white, transparent. A fine widely branching species, in which the catenulate aspect is more evident to the eye than in almost any other. It is at once recognisable by the rhomboidal scutate form of the cell viewed anteriorly, and, when the back is also viewed, the resemblance of the two aspects to the back, and breastplates of a coat of mail, is very striking. The structure of the lateral processes is more distinctly to be made out in this species than in any other. Each lateral process consists, first, of a deep cup-like cavity above; second, a middle compartment, the avicularium; and third, a third loculament below the avicularium, the wide opening of which is covered in by a convex transparent membrane. The bottom of this loculament appears to be perforated, and it is to be noticed also that there is a small central perforation in the septum separating it from the cavity of the avicularium. Towards the bottom of the cell, on each side, is a well developed lateral area of exactly the same conformation as the sub-avicularian loculament, and like it covered in by a convex transparent membrane. It might be supposed that these cavities were for the purpose of containing air, in order to render the otherwise heavy branches of the polyzoary buoyant. They, at all events, appear to be perfectly empty.
7. C. cribaria, n. sp.
Cells sub-globular, compressed, more or less alate. Avicularia large, without any superior appendage, and prolonged downwards into elevated lateral alae. Anterior surface with numerous small round fenestrae, placed at equal distances apart, and evenly distributed over the surface, the circumferential fenestrae being larger than the rest. A minute central perforation of a crescentic form, the lower lip projecting, and the upper lip, lingulate in the middle, falling behind the lower.
Habitat: Bass Strait? This species also occurs in New Zealand.
Colour brown, loosely branched and several inches high. Distinguished readily by the cribriform aspect of the front of the cell, and by the curiously formed central orifice, and by the absence of any superior appendage to the avicularium.