THE SPKAWLET. 
265 
Size. 
Length of column about one-third of an inch [one inch, E.F.] ; diameter 
one-eighth ; length of marginal tentacles one and a half inch [three or 
four inches, E. F.]. 
Locality. 
The Hebridean and Norwegian Seas. 
This very interesting form, the only British example of 
a natatory Anemone, has occurred on two occasions. Loth 
in the month of August, and both in the Minch, the strait 
that divides the Isle of Lewis from Scotland : — first by 
Dr. Balfour in 1841, who obtained a number of specimens, 
but all in a mutilated condition, and subsequently by 
Messrs. E. Forbes andGoodsir in 1850. In the interim, the 
Rev. Mr. Sars, of Bergen, had described and figured it in 
an elaborate memoir in the “ Fauna Littoralis Norvegioe” 
(1846) ; and it is from this that we derive our chief know- 
ledge of the species, Forbes’s account being exceedingly 
meagre. 
It appears in the vicinity of the Isle of I lorde, on the 
coast of Norway, in autumn and winter, swimming on the 
smooth sea, sometimes in dense shoals, sometimes singly, 
borne on the northward current. Comparing the periods 
of its occurrence in the Hebridean and Norwegian seas, we 
may infer that it comes up from the warmer parts of the 
Atlantic ; and it might be hopefully looked for on the 
west coasts of Ireland in the earlier summer. As it 
swims it carries the marginal tentacles horizontally spread, 
when it looks not unlike a long-legged spider : hence 
the generic name from apd^vr], a spider, and uktU, a ray, 
and hence also the English term I have assigned to it. The 
superior or the inferior extremity is indifferently carried 
uppermost. It swims by a languid undulation of the long 
