CORALS AND CORAL-ANIMALS. 149 



closely-convoluted, border. A photograph, taken from life, of this individual specimen reveals 

 a similar peculiarity of their disposition. 



Among the Barrier Reef varieties of sea-anemones in which the tentacles are compound in 

 structure, the form figured in Chrome plate III., Fig. 5, under the title of Phymaiithus uiitscosns 

 is, perhaps, the most abundantly represented. In the flattened shape of the tentacular disk, and 

 in its habits of wedging its base in small holes or narrow crevices of the rocks, this anemone bears 

 some resemblance to the British species Sagaiiia (Hcliactis) bcllis, familiarly known as the " Daisy 

 Anemone." The expanded disk in this type measures three or four inches in diameter, and, except- 

 ing the relatively small central oral area, it is entirely concealed by the flattened, outwardly over- 

 lapping bipinnate tentacles. These tentacles in mature polyps average from three-quarters of an 

 inch to over an inch in length, and in green-tinted examples of the type, more especially, much 

 resemble miniature fern fronds. The variations of colour to which this species is subject are 

 numerous. In one of the commonest varieties, the disk and tentacles throughout are suffused 

 with shades of olive-green, the central shafts of the tentacles being the darkest. In a second 

 variety, the shafts of the tentacles are alone green, their pinnules and all portions of the disk 

 being a pinkish-brown. In yet a third variety, the prevailing ground colours of the disk and 

 tentacles are shades of light greenish-grey, some of the latter being also crimson-tipped. A 

 crimson line, like a vein, runs up the central shaft of each tentacle ; and the pinnules in this 

 variety, while usually pale green, are in some examples nearly white. 



Another attractive compound-tentacled anemone is represented by Figs. 2, 2a, 2B, and 

 2c of Chromo plate No. III. This type, when expanded, is somewhat elevated and conical 

 in outline ; but it alters its shape, when contracted, to an almost perfect spheroid. The tentacles 

 are thickly developed throughout the area of the disk. The inner circlet, situated in the im- 

 mediate neighbourhood of the mouth, contains some four or five tentacles only, which are simple 

 in character ; the remaining tentacles are compound and irregularly palmate or pinnatifid in 

 outline, consisting of a short cylindrical central shaft, around the distal half of which, from five 

 or six to as many as twenty secondary pinnules may be developed. When the tentacles are 

 expanded, these pinnules are elongate and subcylindrical, while in the contracted condition 

 they are drawn in closely to the central shaft, and are distinctly capitate or spheroidal, as 

 shown in Fig. 2b of the plate referred to. In colour, this species was observed to exhibit two 

 well-marked variations. In the one, the polyps were liver-brown throughout, excepting the 

 tips of all the tentacle-pinnules, which were a brilliant golden-green. In tlie second variation 

 the golden-green hue of the pinnule tips was replaced by a light pearl-grey. These two 

 varieties of the same species were found growing massed together in patches of considerable 

 size on the reefs adjacent to the Bay Rock lighthouse, Cleveland Bay, near Townsville. This 

 species is provisionally referred to the genus Rhodactis. In the type form of that genus, 

 R/iodac/is rhodosfonui, the tentacles nearly agree in structure and disposition, except that simple 



