The Oban Pennatulida Again

Abstract

MARINE biologists may be interested to hear that the bed, near Oban, of the largest British pennatulid Funiculina quadrangularis, and the smaller Virgularia mirabilis described by Mr. W. P. Marshall and the late Prof. Milnes Marshall in 1881 or 1882 (I have no books of reference with me) is still apparently in very flourishing condition. In a couple of hauls of the small Agassiz trawl, from this yacht yesterday, between the islands of Kerrera and Lismore, at depths of eighteen to twenty fathoms, I got about a dozen fine specimens of Funiculina, the largest of which measured nearly four feet in length. The bed must be of considerable extent, as the hauls were not on the same spot, and both brought up equally good specimens of these magnificent pennatulids. Most of the large specimens of Funiculina, by the way, were not caught in the trawl-net, but were balanced across the front of the frame, at each end, in such a precarious position as to make one wonder how many others had been lost in hauling in. The bottom deposit was evidently fine mud.