30 THE WEYMOUTH ANEMONE. 



This species, wliicli I shall call the "Weymouth 

 Anemone, is very easily distinguished from any other 

 that I am acquainted with, by several constant 

 characters ; and though there are three well-marked 

 varieties, they are all easily recognised as consti- 

 tuting but one and the same species. The marks 

 common to all, and yet peculiar, are the following. 

 The exterior surface is rough with numerous sucking- 

 glands, arranged in close-set perpendicular ridges 

 of pale-yellow warts, with a crimson freckled skin 

 showing between. Every wart has a crimson speck 

 on its summit ; and as these are small and numerous, 

 they impart a general red hue to the whole body. 

 The tentacles are not numerous, and are chiefly 

 marginal; they are pale pellucid-yellowish in one 

 variety, and in another lovely rose-colour, but in 

 either condition are studded with transversely-oval 

 specks of opaque white ; these organs are usually 

 much spread horizontally, with their tips often curled 

 inward. Another remarkable peculiarity of this spe- 

 cies, is the degi'ce to which it becomes transparent, 

 by distension with water. The effect of this is not 

 the general swelling of the body as in ^4. crassicoriiis, 

 which is remarkable for the same habit effected in 

 another way, but the great dilatation of the disk and 

 tentacles, which then expand to an extraordinary 

 degree, both becoming so diaphanous as to be almost 

 destitute of colour, and showing with absolute clear- 

 ness the convoluted filaments within the septal divi- 

 sions of the interior. 



The third variety I have alluded to, is principally 

 found in deep water, though I have obtained one or 



