THE DAISY ANEMONE. 29 



Size. 



The average diameter of the disk is about one inch and a half; but large 

 specimens attain a breadth of two inches. The height is dependent on the 

 depth of the hole which they inhabit ; in general it is about an inch, but 

 sometimes it is as much as three inches, the column in this case being 

 about three-eighths of an inch in thickness. 



Locality. 



The south and west coasts of England and Ireland, abundant ; almost 

 unknown in Scotland. Crevices, and holes in rock, chiefly in tide-pools. 



Varieties. 



a. Tyriensis. The condition described above, which is perhaps the most 

 common ; at least on our south-western coasts. 



/8. Versicolor. Disk dull yellowish-grey, with radiating broad bands of 

 black ; tentacular border alternately pale blue and dull black. One large 

 tentacle of first row pellucid horn-brown ; the rest dark grey, or white, in 

 alternate groups. Column rose- pink on lower half, purple-grey on upper. 

 Thus there are seven distinct colours in this variety, which yet is not at all 

 showy. 



7. Eburnea. Disk ivory-white (Tugwell). 



5. Modesla. Disk deep umber-brown, mottled with grey at the first row 

 of tentacles, and merging into grey, lavender, or white, towards the third 

 or fourth row. Tentacles mottled with brown and grey. 



e. Sordida. Column dull wainscot-yellow, paler at the basal region. 

 Disk blackish-brown, freckled with grey and white spots. Tentacles 

 similarly coloured. General form thick and clumsy, without the usual 

 tendency to assume a salver-shape. 



" varieties " are deviations from it. Those which I name versicolor or 

 modesla, for example, might as well have been selected for the standard as 

 Tyriensis. Indeed the only true idea of the species must include all its 

 variations. 



" We may attempt," observes a master in science, " to reach what is 

 called the typical form of a species, in order to make this the subject of a 

 conceptioji. But even within the closest range of what may be taken as 

 typical characters, there are still variables ; and, moreover, no one form, 

 typical though we consider it, can be a full expression of the species, so 

 long as variables are as much an essential part of its idea as constants. 

 The advantage of fixing upon some one variety as the typical form of a 

 species is this, — that the mind may have an initial term for the laws 

 embraced under the idea of the species, or an assumed centre of radiation 

 for its variant series, so as more easily to comprehend those laws." — 

 (Dana's " Thoughts on Species.') 



