254 A. E. Verrill—The Bermuda Islands; Coral Reefs. 
This species was originally described from the Antilles. It has 
been recognized as common at the Bahamas and Jamaica. 
It resembles closely, in form and colors, the Mediterranean species, 
A. diaphana (Rapp.), as figured by Andres (Attinie, pl. i, figs. 
13-19). 
Phellia rufa Verrill. Figures 107, 107a, 108, 108a, p. 266. 
Trans. Conn. Acad., x, p. 557, pl. Ixviii, fig. 4, 1900; vol. xi, p. 49, pl. vi, 
fig. 4, 1901 (not fig. 5, as there erroneously quoted.) Mark, Proc. Amer. 
Assoc. Adv. Science, p. [81], pl. 14, fig. 25, 1905, (not fig. 26, as there 
quoted), 
? Phellia clavata Duerden, Actin. around Jamaica, p. 459, 1889, (non Duch, 
and Mich. nec Stimp.). 
When well grown and fully expanded this is a handsome species. 
The column is nearly always salmon-red, brownish red, or terra cotta, 
largely covered with a tough dirty brown epidermis. The light 
reddish or salmon tentacles are elegantly marked with flake-white 
rings and hands, with M- or W-shaped patches of dark red or purple 
near base ; the disk is radially marked with the same colors. 
The tentacles may be flesh-color, brick-red, or dark red, and the 
white markings vary in form. 
One curious variety (fig. 107) had the disk and tentacles slate- 
gray, with almost black radial spots and tentacle bands, while the 
body was brownish red. Var. nigropicta, nov. 
The external cuticle usually ends distally in an abrupt often 
flaring edge, above which the column is brighter colored and often 
partially translucent, flesh-color or light red. 
at that place. This may belong to the same variety or species described by 
MecMurrich. I have seen others with the same constriction, but have not 
examined them with reference to the existence of the two sphincter muscles 
mentioned by him. His species also had reproductive organs on part of the six 
primary or complete mesenteries. 
However, it seems to me desirable to keep apart, as a separate genus, those 
species which have, like pallida, two sphincters, and for such forms the generic 
name Paranthea, given by me in 1869 (Com. Essex Inst., v, p. 322 [8]), should 
be retained, with pallida as the type, as then given. 
To combine in one genus species with and others without sphincters seems 
inconsistent, considering the perhaps exaggerated importance attached to this 
anatomical feature by Hertwig, Carlgren, McMurrich, and many others, in recent 
years, unless it can be proved that one and the same species can vary to this 
extent, which is not impossible, in view of the extensive variations now known 
to occur in the mesenteries, siphonoglyphs, gonads, etc. in many species of 
Actinians. But this is not yet proved for species of Aiptasia. 
