16 
SAGARTIADtE. 
be seen opened to the full in broad daylight ; but if you 
would make sure of seeing it in all the gorgeousness of its 
magnificent bloom, visit your tank with a candle an hour 
or two after nightfall. 
The membranous disk appears to be truly circular in 
outline, but so fully frilled that it is impossible to expand 
it on a plane. There are commonly from five to eight 
broad and deep involutions, which are sometimes simple, 
sometimes compound ; in the latter case forming a semi- 
globular head of close slender tentacles, almost furry in 
character. 
Mr. W. A. Lloyd has favoured me with the following 
note, on a tentacular peculiarity in this species : — 
“ In a marine tank belonging to a customer of mine, 
there is an Acf. dianthus having one single long slender 
tentacle, high overarching the great fleecy mass of ordinary 
tentacles, and acting independently of them, very different 
from anything I have ever before seen in this species, and 
similar to. the one solitary tentacle sometimes present in 
A. hellis." 
When very young, neither the frilled involution of the 
disk, nor the smallness of the tentacles, nor their crowded 
condition, is characteristic of the species. It is then very 
likely to be mistaken by an inexperienced observer for 
another form, or to be described as new. Professor Jordan 
has, I feel sm*e, fallen into this very excusable error ; for 
the specimens which he has described* under the name of 
Actinia aurantiaca were certainly none other than infant 
dianthnses. Their size, — about half-an-inch high ; their 
hue, — orange or almost salmon-colour; their tentacles, — of 
a greyer tint, with a whitish bar ; their locality, — the 
under surface of an inclined mass of rock ; their numbers, — 
• In the Annals of Nat. Hist, for Feb. 1855 
