304 
ZOANTHIDiE. 
Size, 
Column about one-eighth of an inch high, and one-twelfth wide. 
Locality. 
Torbay ; on rock, between tide-marks. 
This very distinct and interesting little Zoanthus 
occurred in a large colony at Broadsands, near Brixham, 
in March, 1859. They were spread on a rock of soft 
red sandstone, and so numerously, that, in the fragment 
wliich came into my possession, I counted sixty polypes 
in a space of one-and-a-half inch square. At first 
their character was much disguised by the crowded sand- 
tubes of a very minute Terehella, out of the tangled masses 
of which the Zoantlii were peeping. When these were 
cleared away by the careful application of a needle-point 
and a hair-pencil, the basal expansion was apparent, an 
irregular broad band, with several polypes abreast, as 
described above. The texture of the band appears less 
compact than in the preceding species, with wliich I com- 
pared it, having a more cellular appearance ; the grains of 
sand too are coarser. 
The species is hardy, my specimens being healthy at 
the present time, after three months’ captivity. They are 
evidently diurnal in their habits and predilections, gene- 
rally expanding under the stimulus of sunlight, but always 
closing at night. When the polype is irritated it shrinks 
nearly to the epidermis, and from the whole summit throws 
off a mucus, which presently becomes membranous, and 
seems identical with the epidermis. 
Couchii. 
[Solanderi.] 
SULCATUS. 
Phellia. 
