Yerrill, Notes on Madiata. 485 



Column greenish Lrown ; tentacles greenish brown, the outer ones 

 lighter. In other specimens, supposed to be of the same species, the 

 column is " flesh-color to olive, base of tentacles, especially outer ones 

 often colored white or pale yellow, occasionally with irregiilar, small, 

 transverse, white or straw-colored spots on the brown tentacles." 



Panama, south reef, near half-tide mark among stones, — F. H. 

 Bradley. 



The specimens in alcohol are broader than high ; the tentacles ob- 

 tuse, not retracted ; the column with strong longitudinal sulcations. 



Sagartia nivea Verriii, 



Actinia nivea IjQs^ovi, Voyage Coquille, p. 81, PI. iii, fig. 8, 1832, Plates, 1826, (non 



S. nivea Gosse = »S. Gossei Verrill). 

 Actinia ? nivea Edw. and H., CoralL, i, p. 247, 1857. 



Very changeable in form, often subconical, subcylindrical, or vase- 

 shaped, or the upper portion of the column may be withdrawn into 

 the lower by an infolding of the walls near the summit ;* surface very 

 smooth, very soft to the touch, marked with longitudinal sulcations. 

 Mouth small, roundish oblong, with a semicircular fold at each end. 

 Tentacles very numerous, crowded at the margin, rather long, fine and 

 slender. Color bluish white, often more or less mottled with light 

 brownish. 



Height 1 to 1*25 inches, in expansion ; diameter '5 to "75 ; length of 

 tentacles '25 to '40. 



Paita, Peru, very common, found by thousands fixed upon the piles 

 of the wharf in front of the city, — Lesson ; Callao, Peru, in vast num- 

 bers, in the interstices among Discinoe, Salani, etc., adhering to the 

 bottom of an old vessel, — F. H. Bradley. 



Several thousand specimens were obtained by Mr. Bradley, and are 

 in excellent preservation, many of them with the tentacles expanded. 

 These appear to belong to Lesson's species, but this cannot be posi- 

 tively aifirmed. Most of these are small, but some, even in partial 

 contraction, are 1^ to 2 inches long ; '5 to '75 in diameter ; the tenta- 

 cles "5 of an inch long, when least conti'acted. The surface is smooth, 

 or finely wrinkled transversely, the integument thin but firm, often 

 showing the internal lamellae. The tentacles are very numerous 

 crowded, long and slender. Color of column white ; tentacles in alter- 

 nating clusters of whitish and dull bluish, in the alcoholic specimens. 



* I have also observed this habit in S. modesta V., from Long Island Sound and 

 in other species. 



