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XXX. Description of Peachia hastata, a new genus and species of the Class ZOOPHYTA ; 
with observations on the Family Actiniade. By Puıuıp Henry Gosse, Esq., A.L.S. 
Read March 20, 1855. 
IN the month of J anuary 1854, and afterwards in March of the same year, the Rev. 
Charles Kingsley found, in the vicinity of Torquay, many specimens of an Actinia, which 
he kindly forwarded to me. As it appeared not only to be an undescribed species, but 
to have characters which separate it generically from others, I venture to lay before the 
Linnean Society my observations concerning it. i 
- The body (Tab. XXVIII. fig. 1) is spindle-shaped or clavate, 4 inches in length, and 
1 inch in greatest diameter, pellucid, very pale red, with numerous slender whitish lines, 
running at equal distances down the whole length. These do not vary in width, and 
are evidently the edges of the internal septa, seen through the translucent integument. 
. The red colour is dependent on a thin epiderniis, which, as the animal is apt, when in a 
sickly state, to distend itself greatly in parts, bursts, and separates into torn shreds, ` 
displaying the pellucid body beneath. | 
The oval disk is very protrusile ; it is surrounded bya single circle of twelve (eleven in 
one specimen) tentacles. "These are short, thick at the base, tapering to a point ; and 
are frequently carried recurved over the margin, like rams’ horns (fig. 2). Their mark- 
ings are peculiarly elegant. Each tentaculum is pellucid-white, as to its ground colour ; 
but its upper side, or that which faces the disk, is variegated with arrow-heads of white 
and brown, in two parallel lines (fig. 3). The arrows point towards the base of the 
tentacle, and the colours are arranged alternately, one of white with one of brown fitting 
into its angle, and so on: there are about six of white and six of brown in each of the 
two rows; but towards the extremities they have a tendency to become confluent. i 
The disk is somewhat similarly marked with arrows or vandykes ; but they point in the 
opposite direction towards the circumference. The arrows of the outermost circle ve 
strongly marked, and form a star or flower of twelve points, of deep brown ; of ones 
points diverge again, to embrace partially the bases of the several tentacles. Wit s 
circle there is a similar one of white, and within this, another of small brown arrows, 
which are not united. 
nn ipa ed in- 
i ile, but does not rise into a cone. Its lips are groov 
The uui. ia eee var on and appear to be confluent at some distance 
teriorly, and the grooves are deep brown, pd 
Lo € ak know of no 
a th protrudes a singular organ, to which I 
down the throat. From the mouth p uu ui dh tip of which dilates 
a . . . . f À fl 
parallel in this class of animals. It is a sort o : 
into a clubbed head, divided into short papille (figs. 2a and 44). The ane ré 
about twenty in number in my largest specimen, with a tendency to form groups, slightly 
radiating ; each papilla consisting of a pellucid sheath and of a dark brown ^ 
VOL. XXI. 
