ASTR^ACEA. 
BVNODIBjE. 
THE RINGED DEEPLET. 
Bolocera eques. 
(Sp. nov.) 
Plate IX. Fig. 6, 
Specific Character. Tentacles wholly retractile ; white, encircled with a 
red ring. 
GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 
Form. 
Base. Adherent, scarcely exceeding the column. 
Column. Cylindrical ; very changeable in shape ; very distensible ; 
surface covered with numerous slightly indented, close-set, longitudinal 
stria; ; studded, on the upper two-thirds, with numerous minute warts, 
increasing in number to the margin : these are either prominent or level, 
at the pleasure of the animal, and they have the power of attaching frag- 
ments of extraneous matter, which, however, seems rarely exercised. 
Substance lax and pulpy, with thin integuments. Margin forming a 
thick parapet, the summit obtusely edged, and notched with close-set 
denticulations, which are not warts, but are the terminations of the striae. 
Disk. Flat, smooth, with very delicate and inconspicuous radii ; outline 
expansile beyond the column. 
Tentacles. Sub-marginal, set in six rows: 6,6,12, 24,48,48=144 ; 
short, thick, conical, but versatile in form, in contraction being slender, in 
distension often ovate, or when this is partial, ovate with a slender point 
{mucro) ; constricted at foot, and in contraction marked with longitudinal 
sulci, both of which are very readily obliterated ; the tip perforate. They 
are subequal, about an inch and a half in length, and when distended, 
upwards of one-third of an inch in diameter ; are flexuous, and thrown in 
various directions ; are strongly adhesive ; they are jjerfectly and readily 
retractile, but in a peculiar mode ; the margin contracts, till its edges meet 
over the tentacles, but it never involves itself. 
Mouth. Occasionally protruded in form of a wide cone. Two gonidial 
grooves, each with its pair of tubercles, and its broad, though faintly 
marked, radius. Lips thickened. Stomach-wall capable of being pro- 
truded in great bladder-like lobes. 
Colour. 
Column. A rich light orange-scarlet, rather duller towards the base 
the strise marked by slightly paler lines; the warts white, each inclosed in 
