THE CAVE-DWELLING ANEMONE. 
89 
Acontla. Long and very slender. Emitted reluctantly, and only on 
great irritation. 
Colour. 
Column. Olive, of a greener or browner tint in different specimens, 
marked with pale longitudinal stripes, widest and most conspicuous at the 
base, where the longer alternate with shorter ones, all generally vanishing 
towards the summit. The suckers for the most part pale. 
Disk. Varied with black, white, and grey, in a delicately pencilled 
pattern, that has justly been compared to the mottling of a snipe’s feather. 
The pattern, which is pretty constant, is produced by the following 
elements : — each primary radius is greyish-white from the K-mark of the 
tentacle-foot, about half-way to the mouth ; then there is a patch of black 
inclosing a spot of white (often very bright), and then a narrow line of 
pale yellow or drab, edged with black, brings the radius to the lip. The 
secondary radii have the same pattern, but more attenuated. 
Tentacles. Pellucid grey, crossed by three (or four) broad rings of 
pellucid white, of which the lowest is undefined, and is frequently tinged 
with buff or orange. At the foot of each tentacle is a black mark con- 
TENTACLE OF S. TROGLODYTES 
(front). 
sisting of a thick transverse bar, succeeded by two curves, the whole 
bearing the form of the Roman capital letter B- This mark is very con- 
stant and characteristic ; sometimes, though the form is preserved, the 
outline is wholly filled up with black ; and sometimes, but very rarely, the 
whole is nearly or even quite obliterated. 
Mouth. Generally whitish. 
Size. 
Large specimens attain a diameter of an inch in the column, and^two 
inches in expanse of flower : the height i^ sometimes two inches and a half, 
but more commonly it does not exceed an inch.* 
• Mr. Holdsworth, in one of his letters, has drawn a pen-and-ink sketch 
of one which was protruding to a height of two inches from the sand at 
the bottom of his tank ; and states that, as the sand was full two inches 
thick, and that, to his belief, the troglodytes was attached, — it must have 
been four inches long. 
