THE PAINTED PUFFLET. 
257 
the habit of the genus, of puffing out the bladder-like 
termination of the column. 
The habit of the species, judging from what I have seen 
of it in captivity, is to buiTOw in fine gravel or sand at 
such a depth as allows it to protrude the coloured capitulum 
from the surface. Here it expands its tentacled disk for 
passing prey : I fed it with fragments of a shrimp, and 
found that it ate with the same avidity, and in exactly 
the same manner, as its cousins, the Sea- Anemones ; the 
tentacles catching and moving to and fro the morsel, and 
disposing its position and direction so as to facilitate the 
mouth’s grasping it ; this latter organ expanding its flexible 
lips to an apparently indefinite width, and gradually en- 
veloping the presented food. 
If rudely touched, the disk was suddenly withdrawn ; the 
capitulum^ and then the upper two-thirds of the scapus, 
disappearing in rapid succession by a process of intro- 
version, exactly like that by which the earthworm with- 
draws its fore parts, or, to use a homely simile, like the 
turaing of a stocking. The extent to which the intro- 
version proceeds depends on the degree of annoyance to 
which the animal has been subjected, or on its wayward 
will. It is capable of crawling along in its subterraneous 
abode, while contracted ; pushing aside the gravel with the 
front of its body. It proceeded in this way two or three 
inches in as many hours, while I was watching it, before it 
turned upwards and thrust out its head ; the evolution of 
the capitulum not beginning until the surface was reached. 
A second specimen of this species was dredged by the 
Rev. Charles Kingsley, off Brixham, in January, 1854. 
He informed me that the form and colours agreed with my 
description, except that the hues of the capitulum were 
more brilliant, and tho.se of the disk less so. “ lie broke 
off his tail in disgust two days ago, but has now thought 
a 
