236 NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN. 



end to end in successive intervals, produce the appearance of 

 two or three longitudinal bands of mesogloea. Below the par- 

 titions between the muscle-containing compartments thicken, 

 so that the compartments become distinctly separated from 

 one another, some even at the lower end of the muscle, being 

 separated by considerable intervals from their fellows (PI. 11, 

 Fig. 2). 



Three species of Adamsia have been described from the 

 West Indies; Lesueur ('17) has described two forms which 

 he named Actinia tricolor and Actinia bicolor, the one from 

 Barbadoes and the other from St. Vincent, while Duchassaing 

 and Michelotti ('64) have described Adamsia egietes from St. 

 Thomas. Of these three the one which seems to resemble 

 most closely the form here described is A. cgletes and I think 

 there can be little doubt as to the identity of the two. The 

 relationships of Lesueur's forms are more uncertain on account 

 of the incompleteness of the descriptions, but I am inclined to 

 consider them identical with A. egietes, so that but a single 

 species of Adamsia is at present to be recognized in the West 

 Indian region. My reasons for this belief are by no means 

 conclusive, resting as they do upon circumstantial evidence, 

 but I think they are sufficiently strong and my conclusion has 

 received confirmation from my colleague, Mr. Duerden, who 

 has had much experience with West Indian forms. 



The habits of the genus Adamsia are such as to render 

 probable the wide distribution throughout any region of a spe- 

 cies occurring in it, and furthermore, so far as our present 

 information extends, the distribution of the various species of 

 Actinians throughout the West Indian islands is pretty uni- 

 form. One should hardly expect, I think, to find three species 

 of Adamsia in different islands, especially since a form, A. sol, 

 identical with the one here described, occurs on the coasts of 

 North and South Carolina. I have examined carefully and 

 compared A. sol with the Cuban specimen described above 

 and I find such complete similarity in structural peculiarities 

 that the identity of the two seems indubitable. With such an 

 extensive distribution, the coasts of the Carolinas, Cuba, and 



