TIIK DAHLIA WARTLET. 
211 
Size. 
Diameter of column frequently three inches ; expanse of flower five ; 
height two. Specimens from deep water are occasionally much larger 
than this. 
Locality. 
The Atlantic coasts of Europe, universally distributed ; in tide-pools, 
and crevices and angles of rocks, near low-water mark ; and in deep water. 
I am not certain whether it extends to the Mediterranean. 
Varieties. 
The colours of this species are very sportive, and scarcely two specimens 
can be found exactly alike ; but all these modifications may be traced to 
difierent degrees of predominance of the hues above mentioned. This 
variety, from its resemblance to a streaked apple, may be named, — 
a. Meloides. 
$. Purpurea. Column wholly dull crimson ; disk crimson, with the 
radial bands and sometimes the central region more brilliant than the rest. 
Tentacles pellucid crimson, with purplish bands. 
y. Insignis. As $, but the tentacles pellucid white, with broad and con- 
spicuous bands of opaque white. (PI. iv. fig. 1.) 
5. A urea. Column yellow, from alight straw or brimstone colour to the 
hue of a ripe apricot. 
*. Tilis. All colour lost in a semi-pellucid dusky grey. (Deep-water 
specimens generally very large.) 
In my “ Devonshire Coast” (p. 36), I stated, with the 
reasons which led me to it, my firm conviction that what had 
hitherto been considered as two species, under the names 
of A. crassicornis and A. coriacea, were one and the same. 
Seven years’ additional experience has only added to the 
strength of that conviction, and I have not been able to 
find a single stable character on which their separation 
could be grounded. It is equally clear which of the two 
specific names must stand. Rejecting Linnaeus’s as out of 
the question, we find that crassicornis was applied to the 
species by Muller, twenty-one years before Cuvier called it 
coriacea. With regard to significance, both appellations 
are good, perhaps equally good ; tlie former indicating the 
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