256 HISTORY OF BRITISH ZOOPHYTES. 
four large specimens which were projecting from the wall 
of the pier, on which they had fastened four or five feet 
under water, I was much struck with the graceful scolloped 
appearance which the fringe had assumed, and I could not 
imagine what they were. I had to rest satisfied, however, 
with a distant view, as the water was too deep, and my 
time too short, for attempting to reach them. The next 
time I fell in with it was in a cleft of a rock in a small 
islet off Saltcoats. The full-grown specimens have the 
power of altering the number of the lobes forming the plu- 
mose margin of the disc. In young specimens the fringe 
does not become lobed. 
Most opportunely, just as I was closing this description, 
Major Martin told me that he had got a magnificent de- 
tinia from the island of Arran; and when I saw it in a 
gold-fish vase, which it almost filled, I was delighted to 
find that it was the finest specimen of the Actenza plumosa, 
or the sea-carnation, I had ever seen. It is now in my pos- 
session, and my daughter Isabella is at present employed in 
making a drawing of it, which, with the Major’s helping 
hand, will form, I trust, a beautiful frontispiece for my book. 
In some respects it differs from any I have seen alive, 
and it is different, also, from the one of which there is such 
- ‘PEE a 
ee 
