DUBUN NATUBAL BI8T0BT 800IBTY. 157 



but thev would badly represent an animal so beautiful, and which, when alive, 

 afforded such an intense interest. 



*' I should add, that Pentactes Andrewsil belongs to the second family of 

 British HolothuriadsD, which have the suckers arranged in five regular rows, and 

 are more or less angular in form. 



••I remain yours very faithfully, 



** C. Fabbam. 



** William Andrewi, Esq. 



** P.S. — I had the pleasure of meetine; Professor Edward Forbes here a short 

 time since, and on giving him a description of the Pentactes he at once said 

 that it was completely new to science, inasmuch as the canary-coloured ten- 

 tacles were entirely unknown— he had never seen such." 



Subsequently (said Mr. Andrews), I had another communication from Dr. 

 Farran, in which he states that he had fortunately obtained two specimens alive 

 of Pentactes Andrewsii^one three and a half, the other three inches in length. 

 The following is its purport : — 



'♦Everyone is aware of the tangled appearance of the root of Laminaria 

 digitata. Taking up one of those which adhered to limestone, and examining 

 it, I perceived your namesakes, so intertwined among the root, and so much re- 

 sembling them, that, had 1 not somewhat of a naturalist's eye, I should have 

 thrown the root away — they were so firmly secured that I had to take away 

 root by root until I liberated them, and, when freed, I thought the pressnre must 

 have been so great that life could scarcely be maintained, the impression of each 

 root resembling a deep welt on the skin ; however, on putting them into a pool 

 of water, these were obliterated, and shortly they assumed the appearance of 

 th^ finger of a glove, leathery and coriaceous. 



" This short description of their position will at once account for the great 

 diflBcultv in obtaining tne animal ; no dredge could reach them, and no violence 

 short of the breaking tip of the floor of limestone on which the Laminaria vege- 

 tates, could reach the animal. The dredge could raise the gravelly soil, heavy 

 blue clay, or other tenacious soils, on which some of those exist; but here per- 

 fect safety appears to preside over their habitations. 



♦• Putting them into a large glass bowl, the following changes took place: — 

 Both became gradually inflated, the larger reaching the length of four and a 

 half inches — the lesser three and a quarter inches, their colour becoming a light 

 brown — here and there presenting in patches, as if the skin was abraded, the 

 silvery white which I described to you in a former letter ; the rows of suckers, 

 much inflated, appear to be double ; the mouth and dental apparatus of a deep 

 sooty black; the tentacles, ten in number, of a light canary colour in the 

 branches ; but the stems black, their length about the third of the body — these 

 are in constant motion, graceful in the extreme; and, contrary to the habit of 

 the first described specimen, which generally fed with the tentacles downwards ; 

 those feed with them upward and upright. They appear to have a perfect power 

 of locomotion, although it would seem that they had little occasion for it, from 

 the position I found them in. When first I placed them in the bowl, they were 

 at a considerable distance ; shortly after, they were together, and remained so, 

 until, being suddenly called to town, I was most reluctantly compelled to termi- 

 nate their existence by putting them into spirits. I have now placed them in 

 your hands to exhibit to the Society at its next meeting.** 



Specimens of the Pentactes, preserved in spirits, were exhibited ; also a draw- 

 ing of the animal in the living state. The animal was about four inches in 

 length, the body coriaceous and wrinkled, and having five rows of diaphanou* 

 vibratile cilia, arranged in pairs ; the oral orifice was of an intense black colour, 

 ten tentacula much branched, of a deep canary colour, dotted with black. 



2 D 



