THE PAINTED PUFFLET. 257 



the habit of the genus, of puffing out the bladder-like 

 termination of the column. 



The habit of the species, judging from what I have seen 

 of it in captivity, is to burrow in fine gravel or sand at 

 such a depth as allows it to protrude the coloured capitulum 

 from the surface. Here it expands its tentacled disk for 

 passing prey : I fed it with fragments of a shrimp, and 

 found that it ate with the same avidity, and in exactly 

 the same manner, as its cousins, the Sea- Anemones ; the 

 tentacles catching and moving to and fro the morsel, and 

 disposing its position and direction so as to facilitate the 

 mouth's grasping it ; this latter organ expanding its flexible 

 lips to an apparently indefinite width, and gradually en- 

 veloping the presented food. 



If rudely touched, the disk was suddenly withdrawn ; the 

 capitulum, and then the upper two-thirds of the scapus, 

 disappearing in rapid succession by a process of intro- 

 version, exactly like that by which the earthworm with- 

 draws its fore parts, or, to use a homely simile, like the 

 turning of a stocking. The extent to which the intro- 

 version proceeds depends on the degree of annoyance to 

 which the animal has been subjected, or on its wayward 

 will. It is capable of crawling along in its subterraneous 

 abode, while contracted ; pushing aside the gravel with the 

 front of its body. It proceeded in this way two or three 

 inches in as many hours, while I was watching it, before it 

 turned upwards and thrust out its head ; the evolution of 

 the capitulum not beginning until the surface was reached. 



A second specimen of this species was dredged by the 

 Rev. Charles Kingsley, off Brixham, in January, 1854. 

 He informed me that the form and colours agreed with my 

 description, except that the hues of the capitulum were 

 more brilliant, and those of the disk less so. " He broke 

 off his tail in disgust two days ago, but has now thought 



S 



