282 Mr. P. H. Gosse on new species of British Actiniae. 



with minute pale sucking-glands, and marked around the base 

 with short and vanishing longitudinal pale lines. 



Tentacles about 200 or more, not in distinct rows, the inner 

 ones about as long as the diameter of the disk, the outermost 

 small and close-set ; slender, acute, somewhat flaccid ; pure 

 white, becoming pellucid at the base, and sometimes at the tip. 



Disk commonly ovate, wholly of a brilliant orange or red-lead 

 colour, with no markings except the indications of internal struc- 

 ture, which are dimly visible through the integument. Its sur- 

 face is plane ; the mouth a simple orifice, without distinct lips or 

 cone. 



This most elegant species I have met with only in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Tenby, where it is so abundant as to be quite cha- 

 racteristic. It occurs all along the south coast of Pembrokeshire, 

 at least from Monkstone Point to St. Gowan^s Head, but is more 

 than usually numerous in the fine perforated caverns of St. Cathe- 

 rine's Island, that form such an attraction to Tenby visitors. It 

 is a troglodyte species, almost invariably choosing for its resi- 

 dence some crevice or cranny, or one of those little cavities made 

 by boring moUusks, with which the limestone here is so gene- 

 rally honeycombed. Though we often see it in shallow pools 

 with a bottom of mud, we invariably find on examination that 

 it is attached to a hole in the rock beneath, protruding its body 

 through the deposit by elongation, and expanding its beautiful 

 disk on the surface. From this habit it is difficult to procure, 

 nothwithstanding its abundance, as it must be chiselled out, — an 

 operation, which, from the great hardness of the limestone, is 

 both tedious and precarious. 



Hundreds may be seen in the largest of the caverns alluded 

 to, hanging down from the walls during the recess of the tide ; 

 the button elongated to an inch or more. They expand very 

 readily in captivity, displaying the brilliant disk in full, fringed 

 with its elegant border of white tentacles ; yet not un seldom do 

 we see the margin puckered into frilled folds, in the manner of 

 A. bellis and dianthus, though to a less extent. 



This species has close relations with A. nivea and A. rosea , 

 especially with the former. Its colouring, however, seems con- 

 stant, without any tendency to albinism ; and its habit of throw- 

 ing the margin into puckers, and its tendency to an ovate out- 

 line, also distinguish it, though less satisfactorily. From rosea 

 it is better distinguished by its superior size, and by the greater 

 comparative thickness of its inner tentacles, which also are more 

 discal, whereas in rosea they are all marginal. All the three 

 species throw out white filiferous filaments in great profusion 

 when annoyed. 



In venusta these are densely crowded with capsules i^jq^^ of 



