ANEMONES 39I 



URTICINA CRASSICORNIS. 



Locality. — Yakutat, one large specimen. Also found on the Atlan- 

 tic and northern coasts of Europe, Great .Britain, Iceland, Spitzber- 

 gen, Greenland, Atlantic coast of North America from Cape Cod 

 northward, and Pacific coast of same from Puget Sound northward 

 into Bering Sea. 



Genus Epiactis Verrill. 



Actinia {\Vi-^2iX\.'), Dana, 1846. 

 Leiotealia Hertwig, 1882. 



CribrinidcE with smooth column wall, without tubercles or ver- 

 rucas ; tentacles of equal size, arranged in several cycles. 



More than thirty years ago Verrill described an anemone from 

 Puget Sound under the name of Epiactis prolif era .^ which was char- 

 acterized by the habit of bearing a circle of young in various stages 

 of development on its column wall just above the foot. The real 

 affinities of the species remained unknown, through lack of an ana- 

 tomical description, until 1S99, when it was shown to be a member of 

 the Cribinidas (Bunodidas), but differing from the typical species 

 of this family in being destitute of verrucas or suckers on the column. 



Meanwhile, Hertwig had found another smooth-bodied representa- 

 tive of this family in the Challenger material, which he identified as 

 Drayton's Actinia tiymphcea, and for which he erected the genus 

 Leiotealia^ with the following definition : 



" TealidiE with smooth body surface, without warts, and without 

 spherules, but with longitudinal furrows corresponding to the inser- 

 tions of the septa, tentacles of equal size arranged in several rows." 



I agree with McMurrich, that the longitudinal furrows are not im- 

 portant characters. Nor do I think, after comparing £ . prollfera 

 and the Alaskan species, E. rltterl, with Hertwig's Leiotealia^ that 

 the pinnate arrangement of the sphincter muscle fibers is of generic 

 value. In the first place, while the sphincter of E. rltterl (fig. 21) 

 approaches the pinnate type of L. nymphcea.^ it yet exhibits features 

 of a nature transitional to the condition in E. prollfera. In the 

 second place, E. rltterl is related in all other characters more closely 

 to E. prollfera than to L. ?iyfnphcea. The presence in the column 

 of the special diffused sphincter muscle which Hertwig has described 

 does not appear to me to warrant the importance that Haddon attrib- 

 utes to it in his definition of I^elotealla since such a sphincter may be 

 derived from the strong circular muscles of Epiactis by very slightly 

 modifying the latter. 



