474 



SUPPLEMENT. 



CoRYNACTis Allmani,* Tliompsoii. 



Spec. char. C. with four concentric rows of short capitate ten- 

 tacula ; those of the third and fourth rows being about equally re- 

 gular and numerous as those of the two outer rows ; tentacula 

 between the fourth row and the mouth irregularly disposed. Fig. 85. 

 Hab. Deep water, attached to shells, &c. Belfast bay, 6 — 10 

 fathoms, August 1844. Strangford Lough, 15 — 20 fathoms, June 

 1846. 



Ykeform is so varied that a good idea cannot be given of its size ; 

 but to give some notion of this, it may be described as being rather 

 under half an inch in breadth and height. The colour of the body 

 is pale coral red ; tentacula flesh-colour, a little streaked, and dotted 

 with bright red : the tentacula being fully expanded, six white rays 



are seen diverging at regular 

 ^^S- 8.^. intervals from the mouth to 



the margin of the disk, to- 

 wards Avhich they become 

 gradually broader ; they di- 

 vide it into six equal spaces. 

 Such is the colour when this 

 individual is free from all 

 adventitious matter ; but 

 when it was taken, and for 

 two weeks afterwards, all of 

 its body except the extreme 

 base and upper portion, 

 was of a dull brown colour, 

 produced by a coating of extraneous matter such as certain species 

 of J.c<iwioe assume : this cast off, the body is smooth. During the 

 four weeks that I kept this Corynactis alive, it was once observed 

 to protrude from the mouth — as some Actinias, do — membraneous 

 lobes, which were pellucid, faintly blushed with pink, and adorned 

 with white lines extending from the mouth to the margin ; these 

 lobes were so large as wholly to occupy the disk when the animal 

 was fully expanded. 



The preceding description is drawn up from a single specimen, 

 dredged in Strangford Lough on the 22nd June, 1846, by Mr. 

 Hyndman and myself Having kept it alive in sea-water, I re- 



* Named in honour of the founder of the genus, for which see Annals of Natural 

 History, June 1846, p. 417. (Vol. xvii.) 



