Verrill, Notes on Radiata. 479 



one very variable and widely diffused species, but until direct and 

 careftil comparisons of nuniorous living specimens of each can be made, 

 this question cannot be positively settled. 



Metridium reticulatum. Kdw. and Haimo, op. dt., p. 255. 



Actinia reticulata Couthouy, ia Dana, Zooph., p. 144, PI. 4, fig. 31, 1846. 

 Actinoloba reticulata Gosse, Actin. Brit., p. 24, 1860. 



" Exterior smooth and reticulately corrugate, subcylindrical, 1 "5 

 inches high, 2-5 thick, with the disk very much dilated (3-5 broad), 

 and margin somewhat five-lobed, not tuberculate ; tentacles very nu- 

 merous, quite short (3 lines), not turgid and covering the greater part 

 of the disk, the inner a little the largest ; mouth somewhat prominent, 

 6 to 8 lines long." 



The column is " covered with a sort of raised network, produced by 

 the corrugations of the external envelope." The disk " is broadly 

 dilated, and the five lobes, or folds, are never effaced so as to leave 

 the disk circular." Tentacles " short, subulate, and disposed in 9 or 

 10, close, alternate series, the inner ones longest, decreasing to marginal 

 ones, which are mere papillae." 



Column " fulvous orange, sometimes olive-brown, with an indistinct 

 zone of black surrounding the superior mai'gin ; tentacles olivaceous ; 

 disk between tentacles and mouth bright ochreous, with strong radi- 

 ating lines, crossed by others of a pale olive-green ; mouth velvet pur- 

 plish-black." 



" This Actinia is remarkable for the opacity of all its parts ; the 

 colors are all soft and rich, but even in the young they lack that trans- 

 parency usually met with in these zoophytes." 



Orange Harbor, Terra del Fuego, attached to stones and shells, — 

 J. P. Couthouy, F. S. Expl. Exp. 



The specimens of this species preserved in alcohol strongly resemble 

 those of M. marginatum and other species of this genus, to which we 

 believe it really belongs, notwithstanding the wrinkled epidermal (or 

 mucous) layer, an appearance which may have been due, in part at 

 least, to imperfect expansion of the column. 



The following species, of which the genus is not determinable from 

 the description, may belong here. 



(?) Actinia Mertensii Brandt, Prod, descr. anim., p. 13, 1835 ; Edw. andHaime, 

 Corall., i, p. 289. 



" Body brown, mingled with black. Tentacles moderate, white. 

 Disk pale brown, with white lines." Coast of Chili, — Mertens. 

 Trans. Connecticut Acad., Vol. I. 61 March, 1869 



