34 THE VOYAGE OF II.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



I must finally justify my determination of the animal as Comactis flagellifera. The 

 mucli shrunken specimen before me had at first sight but little resemblance to the first 

 and only drawing of Comactis flagellifera, given by Dana in the account of his voyage, 

 the contrast being especially marked in the shortness of the tentacles, which Dana has 

 drawn and described as very long. This, however, becomes of less importance if we 

 consider that we have before us a young specimen preserved in spirits. Verrill, who 

 was able to examine spii-it specimens of this species, also lays stress on the fact that 

 their very numerous tentacles, which are of nearly equal length and placed closely 

 together, are contracted into a compact, conical form, that they then measure only 0-25 

 of an inch in length, and have a very distinct terminal opening. The last characteristic 

 becomes more important, from the circumstance that I have never met with any other 

 Actinia in which the existence of the terminal openings could be recognised with the 

 naked eye. (Those forms, of course, being naturally excepted in which the tentacular 

 apparatus has undergone retrograde metamorphosis.) 



Verrill's description continues thus : " The column is very short, with a fold below 

 the margin and separated from it by a " fosse." On the outer edge of the fold the 

 tubercles form a simple row. They are prominent, smooth, round, and nearly equal.' 

 All this applies equally to the Actinia examined by me. 



Family, Tealid^, Hertwig. 



Hexactinise with numerous perfect septa, and very contractile, moderately long or 

 short tentacles, which can be completely covered. Circular muscle very strong, endo- 

 dermal, projecting as a thick swelling into the gastric cavity. 



The systematic descriptions of former naturalists, such as Gosse, Verrill, KJunzinger, 

 &c., included the TealicB along with the species of Bunodes, as " actinines verruqueuses" in 

 the family of Buuodidse, which I do not consider a happy combination. In the course 

 of this memoir I shall have occasion to describe an Actinia, which must be placed in the 

 genus Bunodes, if we keep the definition given by Gosse and others, but whose structure 

 approaches that of Sagartia more closely than that of Tealia. If it be assumed that 

 this single species, the only one examined in detail till now, may be taken as the 

 paradigm for the other forms of the genus Bunodes, there can be no doubt that the 

 genera Bunodes and Tealia must be widely separated systematically. 



Having the possibility just mentioned in view, I considered it to the purpose to 

 introduce the family name Tealidse, and I took the structure of Tealia crassicornis as the 

 paradigm for its definition. Two other Actiniise, Tealia bunodiformis and Leiotealia 

 nymphoea, of which I am about to give a detailed description, are allied to this wide- 

 spread form, which, however, was not represented in the Challenger material. 



The most important feature of the family is, I consider, the extremely characteristic 



