158 Mr. P. H. Gosse on new or little-known Marine Animals. 



nearly equal diameter throughout, but taper to a blunt point at 

 the extremity. Their substance is of colourless transparency, 

 with the exception of transverse rows of specks and dashes of 

 opake white, more or less arranged in rings, increasing in num- 

 ber and size, until they become confluent at the tips ; this glassy 

 translucency imparts to the tentacles a singular effect, especially 

 as the part where they become free and spring from the margin 

 of the disk is marked by an abrupt circle of opake white. Each 

 tentacle is about thrice as long as the disk is wide. These organs 

 radiate horizontally, and commonly are curved either upward or 

 downward at their tips. Their bases coincide with the flutings 

 of the column. 



The specimen which I have described was dredged in four or 

 five fathoms in Weymouth Bay, about the end of July. Its habit, 

 judging from what I have seen of it in captivity, is to burrow in 

 fine gravel or sand at such a depth as allows it to protrude the 

 coloured column from the surface (as shown at fig. c). Here it 

 expands its tentacled disk for passing prey : I fed it with frag- 

 ments of a shrimp, and found that it ate with the same avidity, 

 and in exactly the same manner as its cousins, the Sea-Ane- 

 mones ; 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 enveloping 

 the presented food. 



If rudely touched, the disk was suddenly withdrawn, the co- 

 lumn, and then the upper two- thirds of the body disappearing in 

 rapid succession by a process of inversion, exactly like that by 

 which the Earthworm withdraws its fore parts, or, to use a homely 

 simile, like the turning of a stocking. The extent to which the 

 introversion proceeds depends on the degree of aimoyance 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 column not beginning until 

 the surface was reached. 



The form and habits of this animal had appeai'cd to warrant 

 its isolation from any genus known to me ; it is most nearly 

 affined to Iluanthos of Professor Forbes, but seemed to me suffi- 

 ciently distinct from that genus, before I was aware of the pre- 

 sence of an anal orifice. This is a peculiarity (probably con- 

 nected with its elongate form) which at once isolates it from its 

 fellows. The aperture is moderately large, of a deep black, 

 which hue appears to be derived from the colour of the faeces 



