REPORT ON ACTINIARIA. 



237 



St. Thomas, one may well expect the same species to occur 

 elsewhere throughout the West Indies. 



As regards A. bicolor. it is unquestionably an Adamsia but 

 the size given for it, " height and diameter about six or seven 

 lines," indicates that it was a young individual and the differ- 

 ences between it and A. tricolor may well be accounted for on 

 this supposition. 



The first point in Lesueur's description of A. tricolor that 

 may be noticed is the statement that the mouth is surrounded 

 bv •• a circle of blue and another of orange." Here we have 

 a very characteristic marking and turning to the description 

 of A. egletes we find that it has a circle of red around the 

 mouth. In both cases there is a distinct band of color around 

 the mouth, and the discrepancv in the color of the band may, I 

 think, be explained by a reference to A. sol, in which the lips are 

 of a canary-yellow color (Lesueur's orange circle) and around 

 this is a vivid circle of crimson lake, a color which mav readily 

 shade off into bluish on the one hand or red on the other. 

 This marking seems to me very characteristic, and occurs, so 

 far as is known, in no other species of Adamsia. 



A seemingly important difference between A. tricolor and 

 A. eglctes, and one which led Duchassaing and Michelotti to 

 regard the latter as a distinct species, is the statement that in 

 A. tricolor there are several rows of cinclides. I think this 

 difference is also capable of explanation, even leaving out of 

 consideration the indefiniteness of the word •• several," since 

 in A. sol the lower row of cinclides is sometimes irregular and 

 might suggest the occurrence of more than two rows, and I 

 may further add that Mr. Duerden informs me by letter that 

 from an examination of the species of Adamsia occurring in 

 Jamaica and which he considers identical with A. egletes and 

 tricolor, he believes that " little importance can be attached 

 the arrangement of the cinclides." The tubercles which 

 Lesueur describes as occurring around the mouth in A. tri- 

 color are, I believe, merely the crenulations of the lips so fre- 

 quently noticeable in Actinians and due to the longitudinal 

 ridges of the stomatodaeum; while the tubercles of the ten- 



