THE PLUMOSE ANEMONE. 13 



Colour. 



Column. Olive, olive-brown, umber-brown, red-lead, pale-orange, salmon- 

 red, flesh-colour, cream-white, pure white. ["Lemon-yellow," "peach- 

 blossom." — Daltell. ] 



Disk. Agrees with the column. 



Tentacles. Generally agree with the column, but in the olive and. brown 

 varieties, they are sometimes almost wholly pellucid-white, and in all cases 

 they are marked with a single transverse bar of white, near their middle ; 

 most conspicuous in youth. 



Lip. Always rufous, or orange-red ; whatever the hue of the body. 



Size. 

 Specimens occasionally attain six inches in height, and three in thickness. 



Locality. 



All round the coasts of Europe, in deep water, and on dark rocks 

 between tide-marks. 



Varieties. 



These might be made as numerous as the various shades of colour above- 

 mentioned ; but for practical purposes it may be sufficient to distinguish 

 the following : — 



a. Brunnea. Including the shades of brown, from dingy blackish olive, 

 to warm xunber, or fawn-colour. Sometimes, as in examples that have 

 fallen under my own observation, the tentacles, in these brown specimens, 

 are almost white, marked with the more opaque white bar. There is not 

 the slightest reason to assign these, as has been suggested, to another 

 species. 



/3. Rubida. The various tints of red, from the full minium-scarlet to the 

 peach-blossom and flesh-colour, may be classed under this variety, which 

 is perhaps the most abundant of all. 



y. Flava. Sir John Dalyell enumerates " lemon-yellow " among the hues 

 of this species ; but it must be a very rare variety. I have never seen it. 



5. Smdonea. Perhaps this is the most elegant variety ; the animal being 

 clad in translucent white — " simplex munclitiis," as if arrayed in the finest 

 Coan vestments. It is not uncommon. 



This noblest of our native Sea-anemones seems to be 

 entitled to generic separation from the Sagartice, with 

 which I have hitherto associated it. Its form and habit, 

 its puckered disk, its crowded and fringe-like tentacles, its 

 thickened parapet and deep fosse, and the presence of only 



