MR. GOSSE ON PEACHIA HASTATA. 273 



such as I have had opportunities of personally examining) may be distributed into two 

 groups. The first contains such species as have the body studded with warts ; the skin 

 coriaceous ; the tentacles moderately few, generally thick, conical, and obtuse, and for the 

 most part marked on their facial surface with transverse dashes of opaque colour. They 

 do not discharge filaments under any annoyance (when wounded, however, the convo- 

 luted ovarian bands protrude) ; and the nettling threads of then* tissues are long and 

 simple, or at least never brush-like. That of A. crassicornis, indeed, is armed at its base, 

 as I have represented it elsewhere* ; but it is in a manner peculiar to itself, and totally 

 unlike that of the Sagartice. This fine species deviates, in some other subordinate parti- 

 culars, from the rest of the verrucose Actmice, and may possibly require ultimately to be 

 separated. For the present, however, I include it in this genus, which I propose to call 

 Bunodesf. 



There now remains a group, for which, as it includes the most abundant of our species, 

 the everywhere-familiar Smooth Anemone (A. Mesembrycmthemum), I would retain the 

 appellation of Actinia. In addition to this well-known species we have two others on the 

 British shores, which I shall presently mention. Besides the negative characters which 

 mark these species — the absence of emitted filaments, and of surface- warts, — they have a 

 distinct positive one, in the existence of a series of spherical or oval bodies, of unknown 

 function, seated between the outermost row of tentacles and the margin of the disk. In 

 our native species these are conspicuous, from their opaque blue or white colour ; but in 

 exotic species, they occur of other hues. In Mesembrycmthemum, the oyarium-bands, and 

 the walls of the tentacles, are furnished with comparatively few thread-capsules, which 

 are linear, and very small ; those of the bands being about Tfooth of an inch in length, 

 and those of the tentacle-walls not more than xuVo th ; whereas the ovate capsules of the 

 Sagartice run from sioth (Dianthus) to ^fsth (parasitica) ; the length in most of the 

 species being about Tooth. 



The marginal spherules, however, are almost wholly composed of capsules, very linear, 

 and about jgo^ 1 of an m ch long. They very reluctantly emit the thread, which I have 

 therefore seen only in few instances. It is very subtile, and of considerable length ; but 

 I was not able in any case to trace it to its termination. From these facts I incline to 

 think, that the marginal spherules of Actinia may represent, in function, the missile fila- 

 ments of Sagartia %. 



Among subordinate characters of this genus may be mentioned the very delicate and 

 smooth skin, destitute of both pores and sucking glands. The disk and tentacles are 



when they engage with the enemy, they throw out ropes, which have nooses at the end ; and whatever any one catches, 

 whether horse or man, he drags towards himself; and they that are entangled in the coils are put to death." — 

 Herodotus, vii. 85. 



* 'Devonshire Coast,' pi. xxviii. fig. 19. t Bow&iltis, verrucosus, clivosus. 



X M. Hollard cannot conjecture the function of these marginal spherules. " Their position at the circumference, 

 the volume and great transparency of their capsules, their existence in a species eminently littoral, exposed, and very 

 sensible to the variations of the atmosphere, when the sea is out,— do not these circumstances indicate some physio- 

 logical relation between these little organs and the action of light?" — (Ann. des Sci. Nat. 1851, p. 272.) 



Has not M. Hollard, however, overlooked the fact, that the spherules are never exposed to the atmosphere, since the 

 disk is expanded only under water ? 



