1907.] Records of the Indian Museum. 63 



ponds nearest the railway station, both of which are used by the 

 people of the settlement for such purposes as washing domestic 

 utensils and clothes. (There is at Port Canning one large pond 

 which is only separated from the brackish ones by a few hundred 

 yards and yet contains fresh water ; but as the fauna of this pond 

 is of normal character and does not include marine elements, I 

 have not referred to it hitherto and need not do so again.) 



Although the typical and the new forms of M. schillerianum 

 are alike in producing a temporary sheath of matter secreted by 

 their own cells and mixed with extraneous substances, the new 

 form is not in the habit as a rule of attaching itself by its base to 

 the few inanimate solid bodies to be found in the ponds. SpongiUa 

 cerehellata, however, often occurs in masses of considerable size in 

 the ponds, and in its canals I have found enormous numbers of 

 young individuals of the Actinian. In the majority of cases these 

 were situated in such a way that their long axes were parallel to 

 those of the canals, to the walls of which they adhered by means 

 of the external surface of their columns. In some cases, however, 

 their basal disks were attached to the shells of small Lamellibranchs 

 {Corbula spp.) which also frequent the canals of the Sponge. In 

 situations in which no Sponges were present, the young of the 

 Actinian were generally found attached to the filaments of algse 

 which formed more or less dense cloud-like masses, and many were 

 also found among the matted roots of grasses. None, however, 

 were found attached to the stems or branches of upright plants 

 such as Naias, and it was clear that among the algae and grass 

 roots a considerable amount of lateral support was given them. 

 When they were placed in a vessel of water without any such 

 artificial support, they proved able to adfix themselves to the 

 bottom by their bases and to stand upright with fully expanded 

 tentacles. In this position they closely resembled the young of the 

 common European Sagartia troglodytes and could onh' be distin- 

 guished from small examples of the typical M. schillerianum by 

 the greater elongation of their columns and by the thinness of the 

 walls of this region — a feature quite apparent owing to the trans- 

 parency of the tissues, which permitted the exact position of the 

 internal organs and the movements of the acontia to be observed 

 with ease. Individuals even in this stage, however, rarely lived for 

 long in an aquarium, and at once gathered round them filaments 

 of algse. 



The full-grown individuals of this new race were invariably found 

 buried in mud, in which they were sunk as far as the base of the 

 tentacles, and into which they retreated completely on being dis- 

 turbed. When removed from the mud their long, vermiform 

 columns were unable to support them in an upright position, 

 and they lay in a glass vessel with their main axes parallel to the 

 bottom, but with the extreme distal end of the column slightly 

 curved upwards. Their attitude and appearance were in fact 

 closely similar to those of many .species of Cerianthus in similar 

 circumstances. And yet every intermediate stage was to be found 



