212 Z. HELIANTHOIDA. Actinia. 



the tide, nothing of the animal can be seen, and its presence in a lo- 

 cality is only to be guessed at by the holes in the sand, which, how- 

 ever, are exactly like the holes of many arenicolous worms. 



Actinia niesembryanthemnm lives between tide-marks, and is most 

 plentiful near that of high water. It is consequently often left ex- 

 posed to the open atmosphere, but it expands only when covered with 

 water. It never, so far as I have observed, emits from the mouth, 

 like the other species, any thread-like tangled filaments ; nor does it 

 seem to have the power of protruding the membrane of the stomach 

 in the form of vesicular lobes. Gsertner says that " the colour of its 

 body is always red in the summer, but changes into a dusky green, or 

 brown, towards the latter end of autumn," — a remark which certain- 

 ly does not hold good on the northern shores of Britain, where the 

 red and dusky green varieties may be found intermingled at all seasons. 



2. A. Bellis, " body lengthened^ the lower part narrow, 

 smooth, the upper enlarged and glandularly loarty ; oral disc ex- 

 panded, lohed ; tentacida in several rows, variegated." Gaertner. 

 Hydra calyciflora, tentaculis retractilibus variegatis ; corpore verrucoso, 



Gaertner in Phil. Trans, lii. 79. tab. 1, fig. 2 Actinia Bellis, Ellis 



and Soland. Zooph. 2. Turt. Gmel. iv. 103. Turt. Brit. Faun. 131. 



A. pedunculata, Pen. Brit Zool. iv. 102. Berk. Syn. i. 186. Lam. 



Anim. s. Vert. iii. 70. i?osc, Vers, ii. 258. Stark, Elem. ii. 412. Flem. 



Brit. Anim. 498. Templeton \nMa.g. Nat. Hist. ix. 303. Hydra bellis, 



Stew. Elem. ii. 431. 

 Hah. " Frequently found in the pools about the Mount's Bay," 

 Cornwall, " It is rare to meet with a single one in a place, there 

 being most commonly four or five of them living so near together in 

 the same fissure of the rock, which they constantly inhabit, that their 

 expanded calyces form a row of flower-like bodies, that seem to grow 

 upon the dig's under water," Gcertner. " Found in a pool on the 

 rocks at the north end of the Island of Rathlin, August 1795," 

 Templeton. 



"From its small basis rises a cylindric stalk, which supports the 

 roundish body of the animal, from whence afterwards the calyx, being 

 a continued membrane of the body, draws its origin. The stalk, or 

 the pedunculus of the polype, is quite smooth, and its colour inclines 

 towards the carnation. The outside of the calyx, and the body of 

 this animal, are marked with a number of small white protuberances, 

 resembling warts, to which fragments of shells, sand-grains, &c.adhere, 

 and hide the beautiful colour of these parts, which, from that of car- 

 nation, is insensibly changed towards the border of the calyx first in- 

 to purple, then violet, and at last into a dark brown. The inside of 

 the calyx is covered with the feelers, that grow in several ranges 



