MR. GOSSE ON PEACHIA HASTATA. 275 
Anterio i 
Midi f iik extremity normal... Ilyanthus. 
Non-adherent Anterior extremity forming a retractile column |... Edwardsia. 
Ditrematous 4... nndis a a eM an kat odes SU a a Peachia. 
If we take Sagartia as the typical genus, which its superior populousness, and the 
perfection of its armature entitle it to be considered, we may trace, as from a central 
point, some of the relations of the Actiniade, inter se, as well as with other forms. 
Adamsia comes very close to Sagartia, possessing the power of emitting filaments in 
high perfection : probably the point of union between these genera will be S. parasitica ; 
which, like Adamsia palliata, attaches itself to shells in which Paguri dwell; and which 
is pre-eminent in its genus for the abundance and the tenacity of its filaments. The 
passage from Sagartia to Bunodes is perhaps through S. Dianthus and B. clavata ; 
the disk of the latter being very expansive, with the tentacles situated at its margin. © 
S. Bellis, in its power of assuming a saucer-like form for its thin expanded disk, to which 
the narrow body serves as a foot-stalk, shows also a remote approach to Lucernaria, in 
which this figure is permanent. 
Lucernaria exhibits a beautiful link of connexion between the Actinoderm and the 
Arachnoderm forms of RapıaTA. The Oceania turrita has its umbrella produced into a 
long moveable spire, which looks exactly like a foot-stalk, by which it had been attached 
when in a polype condition; while in Bougainvillea we get the numerous tentacula 
gathered into groups. The mobile, four-lobed mouth of Zucernaria closely resembles 
the peduncle of a Medusa. ; ! 
There is a curious analogy (I fear it is nothing more) between Zucernaria and the 
genus Floscularia among the RoTIFERA : both are attached by a slender pedicel; both i 
have a flower-like disk, jutting out into angles, which are beset with a multitude of fila- 
ments (tentacles in the one case, setiform cilia in the other) that radiate in all directions. 
The tender and soft-bodied little Sagartia candida and S. rosea seem to lead off ; to 
Corynactis Allmanni, though the points of resemblance are rather general than special. 
But this latter genus passes into Capnea, by a remarkable species described by Mr. W. 
Thompson of Weymouth, in the Zoological Transactions for 1853, under the name of 
Corynactis heterocera, and which I had an opportunity of examining while alive. Pro- 
fessor Forbes has observed the close affinity of his Capnea sanguinea to the Zoanthade, 
and the transition which the latter exhibit to the ereeping and budding Hydroid polypes 
is sufficiently apparent. Corynactis, in its capitate tentacles, shows also a in Z 
Cyathus Smithii, among the coralligenous ANTHOZOA d while the simply-oonical form o 
these organs in Balanophyllia regia agrees with Aetinia, &e. 
The transition from Sagartia to Actinia proper, I do not know how to trace, except: 
hara le group. The soft-bodied species of the former genus, 
= a venusta and nivea, are however cer- 
which do not possess sucking glands, as candida, 
- tainly more closely allied to the smooth-skinned (Ce tais rige than such coarse 
3 $i . ora ra 1 say. ` 
species as 9. Bellis, parasitica, &c., and this a can a : 
I think, however, that Actinia makes a decided approach to Lucernaria, in appe 
liferous spherules of the margin; for the oval appendages which are p um = 
of the disk, in the latter genus, alternating with the groups of tentacles, are, 1 dou , 
consimilar in structure and function to those spherules. d 
VOL. XXI. 
