ASTRjEACEA. 
SAOARTIAD^. 
THE PARASITIC ANEMONE. 
Sagartia 'parasitica. 
Plate II. fig. 6. 
Specific Character. Large, pillar-like ; skin coriaceous ; tentacles in 
seven rows, marked with a many-broken line down each side. 
Actinia effoeta. Rapp, Polyp, 54 ; pi. ii. fig. 2 (An Linnsei?). 
parasitica. Couch, Zooph. Cornw. 34 ; Corn. Fauna, iii. 80 ; 
pi. XV. figs. 1,2. JoHNST. Brit. Zooph. Ed. 2. 228, 
pi. xli. Cocks, Rep. Cornw. Pol. Soc. 1851, 8, 
pi. ii. fig. 11. Gosse, Aquarium, 144, pi. iv. 
Tuowell, Manual, pi. vi. 
Sagartia parasitica. Gosse, Tr. Linn. Soc. xxi. 274; Ann. N. H. Ser. 3. 
i. 416. 
GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 
Form. 
Base. Adherent, generally to shells. Little exceeding the column. 
Column. Minutely corrugated on the upper parts, but studded on the 
lower half with numerous warts, mostly small, but a few among the rest 
large and prominent. No apparent suckers. Substance firm, somewhat 
coriaceous. Form, that of a thick pillar ; the height twice or thrice as great 
as the diameter ; plump and rounded. Margin forming a slightly thickened 
rim, minutely notched, scarcely rising above the level of the disk, and 
obliterated when the disk is fully expanded. 
Disk. Nearly flat, or slightly concave ; the margin somewhat mem- 
branous, wider than the column, which it overarches; occasionally it is 
thrown into puckered undulations, but only to a small extent. R^dii not 
prominent. 
Tentacles. Five hundred or upwards ; arranged in about seven rows, of 
which the first contains about twenty, the second twenty-four, the third 
forty-eight, the fourth ninety-six ; those of the other rows are too numerous 
and too closely set to be enumerated. The first row springs from the disk 
at about half-radius, — that is, midway between the lips and the margin 
they occasionally stand erect, but more frequently arch outwards in 
elegant overhanging curves. When distended, those of the first row are 
often an inch in length, and one-eighth of an inch in thickness : the others 
diminish in regular gradation, until those of the margin do not exceed a 
line in length. Their form varies in different individuals, and perhaps at 
