226 ANTHOZOA HELIANTHOIDA. 



17. A. cRAssicoRNis, hody conoid, variously coloured, rough 

 with glandular warts ; tentacula numerous, in three or four 

 series, shorter than the diameter of the oral disc, thick, and 

 generally variegated with red and ivhite rings ; a darlc spot on 

 each side of the mouth in the medial fissure ; rim of the border 

 uneven. 



LATE 



XL. 



L'Ortie rouge, Rondel. Poiss. i. 381-2. — Priapus sive Actinia proboscidihus crassis 

 rotundis, Bast. Opusc. Subsc. i. lib. iii. 143, tab. 13, fig. 1. — Act. felina, Lin. Syst. 

 1088. Barbut Gen. Verm. 53, tab. 5, fig. 6. — Act. senilis, Dicquemare in Phil. 

 Trans. Ixiii. 367, tab. 16, fig. 10 : and tab. 17. fig. 11, 12. Jolmstori in Trans. 

 Newc. Soc. ii, 245 (pelagic varieties). Templeton in Mag. Nat. Hist. ix. 303. — 

 Actinia crassicornis. Mull. Zool. Dan. prod. 231. Adams in Lin. Trans, iii. 252. 

 Jameson in Wem. Mem. i. 558. Stew. Elem. i. 393. Lam. Anim. s. Vert. iii. 

 67 : 2de edit. iii. 407. — Act. holsatica. Rutlike in Mull. Zool. Dan. iv. 23, tab. 

 139. — Act. equina, Sowerby Brit. Misc. 7, pi. 4. — Act. bimaculata ? Grube Actin. 

 4, fig. 4. 



Hob. — On old shells and stones from deep water, very common. 

 On some shores it is also a littoral species, when it is "generally 

 attached to the side of the rock in crevices, or on the face of clean stones 

 in sheltered situations," W. P. Cocks. 



This fine species resembles the Act. coriacea in shape, but it 

 attains a larger size, is less coriaceous, more variously and vividly 

 coloured, and the warts of the skin are smaller and more scat- 

 tered, and sometimes they are scarcely or not at all obvious ; but, 

 as Mr. Cocks has remarked, the most distinctive character of A. 

 crassicornis is the readiness with which the rim of the peristoma- 

 tous disc can be thrown into undulations or twisted awry ; to 

 which I would add the ready ease with which the body is filled with 

 water until it becomes bladdery and diaphanous. The tentacula 

 are disposed within the circumference of the oral disc, in three or 

 four close rows ; they are thick, short, obtuse, somewhat compressed, 

 almost always annulated or variegated with white and red, but when 

 the body is of a uniform pale, flesh, or cream colour, the tentacula 

 are of the same colour and without rings. The animal protrudes 

 from the mouth at pleasure four or five vesicular, pellucid, scored 

 lobes, which vary in size according to their degree of evolution, and 

 often hang over the sides. When kept for a few hours in a basin of 

 sea-water, it becomes much larger in all its parts, paler, and almost 

 diaphanous ; and the tentacula elongate themselves, swell out, and 

 are distinctly seen to be tubular. 



