16 SAGARTIADJE. 



be seen opened to the full in broad daylight ; but if you 

 would make sure of seeing it in all the gorgeousness of its 

 magnificent bloom, visit your tank with a candle an hour 

 or two after nightfall. 



The membranous disk appears to be truly circular in 

 outline, but so fully frilled that it is impossible to expand 

 it on a plane. There are commonly from five to eight 

 broad and deep involutions, which are sometimes simple, 

 sometimes compound ; in the latter case forming a semi- 

 globular head of close slender tentacles, almost furry in 

 character. 



Mr. W. A. Lloyd has favoured me with the following- 

 note, on a tentacular peculiarity in this species : — 



" In a marine tank belonging to a customer of mine, 

 there is an Act. dianthus having one single long slender 

 tentacle, high overarching the great fleecy mass of ordinary 

 tentacles, and acting independently of them, very different 

 from anything I have ever before seen in this species, and 

 similar to the one solitary tentacle sometimes present in 

 A. bettis." 



When very young, neither the frilled involution of the 

 disk, nor the smallness of the tentacles, nor their crowded 

 condition, is characteristic of the species. It is then very 

 likely to be mistaken by an inexperienced observer for 

 another form, or to be described as new. Professor Jordan 

 has, I feel sure, fallen into this very excusable error ; for 

 the specimens which he has described* under the name of 

 Actinia aurantiaca were certainly none other than infant 

 dianthuses. Their size, — about half-an-inch high ; their 

 hue, — orange or almost salmon-colour; their tentacles, — of 

 a greyer tint, with a whitish bar ; their locality, — the 

 under surface of an inclined mass of rock ; their numbers, — 



* In the Annals of Nat. Hist, for Feb. 1855, 



