THE PAKASITIC ANEMONE. 
113 
difiFerent times, sometimes being blunt and nearly cylindrical, at others 
tapering to a fine point. 
Mouth. The centre of the disk gradually swells into a stout low cone, 
in the centre of which is the mouth, edged with a thick furrowed lip. 
Acontia. White, long, and as thick as sewing-cotton ; projected on the 
slightest irritation, and in the most copious profusion, both from the 
mouth and from the loop-holes of the column. 
Colour. 
Column. Ground-colour, a dh’ty white or drab; often slightly tinged 
with pale yellow ; longitudinal bands of dark wood-brown, reddish- or 
purplish-brown, run down the body, sometimes very regularly, and set so 
closely as to leave the intermediate bands of ground-colour much narrower 
than themselves : at other times these bands are narrower, more separated, 
or broken into chains of dark spots. Immediately around the base the 
bands usually sub-divide, and are varied by a single series of upright oblong 
spots of rich yellow, which are commonly margined with a deeper brown 
than that of the bands. The whole column is surrounded by 
close-set faint transverse lines of pale hue, sometimes scarcely 
di.stinguishable, except near the summit, where they cut the 
bands in such a manner as to form, with other similar lines 
which there run lengthwise, a reticulated pattern. 
Dish. Pellucid yellowish-white, often tinged wuth faint 
purple about the half-radial region, and marked with a circle 
of six squarish patches of opaque white. 
Tentacles. Pellucid, faintly tinged with flesh-colour, cream- 
yellow, or purplish; each marked with a dark purplish or 
bro^vn line down each side, which is broken into about five 
dashes. The sub-marginal rows, which from their minuteness 
may be compared to a fringe, are frequently divided into alter- 
nate patches of colour ; — a patch of pale tentacles, then one 
of purplish, — six groups of each colour completing the circle. 
These alteraations do not conceal the lateral lines of the ten- 
tacles ; and though sometimes beautifully distinct, they are at tentacle 
others scarcely perceptible. The pale patches correspond to (front). 
the square spots of white on the disk. 
Mouth. Opaque white, or cream -white. 
Size. 
It frequently attains a height of four inches, with a diameter of two and 
a half in column, and three and a half in flower. 
Locality. 
The shores of the British Channel, the Mediterranean and Red Seas ; 
in the coralline zone. For the most part adhering to such shells as are 
inhabited by the Soldier-crab. 
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