80 THE MARINE AQUARIUM. 
himself. Like most lazy dignitaries, this showy Actinia 
attracts more attention than the lively servant who drags 
it from place to place, for its form and colouring are 
beautiful in the extreme. 
It is of large size, frequently attaining to a height of 
four inches with a diameter of two and a half. Mr. 
Gosse’s description of this fine creature is so minute and 
interesting, that I must beg the reader to accept it in 
preference to any that Ican write. He says, the “‘ ground 
colour is a dirty white, or drab, often slightly tinged 
with pale yellow; longitudinal bands of dark wood- 
brown, reddish, or purplish brown, run down the body, 
sometimes very regularly, and set so closely as to leave 
the intermediate bands of ground colour much narrower 
than themselves ; at other times these bands are narrower, 
more separated, and variously interrupted or broken. I 
have seen a variety in which the bands took the form of 
chains of round dark spots, the effect of which was 
handsome. Immediately round the base the bands usually 
subdivide, and are varied by a single series of upright, 
oblong spots of rich yellow, which are usually marginal, 
with deeper brown than the bands. The whole body is 
surrounded by close-set faint lines of pale blue, some- 
times scarcely distinguishable, except near the summit, 
where they cut the bands in such a mamner as to form, 
with other similar lines which there run lengthwise, a 
reticulated pattern. 
«« The disk is somewhat wider than the diameter of the 
body, which it over-arches on all sides. Its margin is 
somewhat thin, and occasionally thrown into puckered 
