OF SEA-ANEMONES. 49 



lines, and perhaps discover half-a-dozen or more 

 which answer to the description. All these, then, 

 are individuals of the species Actinia coriacea, the 

 "thick-skinned anemone."* The body is generally 

 marbled with red and green, colours which, in cap- 

 tivity, turn to a uniform dull red. The tentacles 

 seem to be arranged in four rows, the first and 

 second rows containing ten tentacles in each, and 

 the total number being one hundred, more or less. 

 The variety of colour is too great to be detailed 

 within the limits of the present work, and I can only 

 give tw^o or three kinds as specimens of the w^hole. 



1. The Russet Thick-skinned. 



Oral disc dove-colour tinted with lake, shading 

 into russet among the tentacles. Tentacles dove- 

 colour tinged with russet, barred with white and 

 Indian red. Lines of the two latter colours encircle 

 the bases of the tentacles in the inner rows. 



* Johnston, in his ' British Zoophytes,' recognises two species 

 which are closely similar, A. coriacea and A. crassicornis. He says 

 that the latter inhabits deep water, and never indues itself with a 

 coat of stones. Mr. Gosse denies that this remark is ever verified in 

 any species of the genus, and includes both kinds under the name 

 of crassicornis, or " thick-horned." I have ventured to preserve 

 Professor Johnston's original nomenclature, and have called the 

 species which is so abundant on our coasts A. coriacea, " thick- 

 skinned," certainly a more characteristic name than "thick-homed." 

 If there be a "thick-horned" species which does not invest itself 

 with stones, it has, at any rate, never been heard of in late years. 



P 



