ACTINIAE : ANTIIEA. 241 



viduals were to be found of a green colour, with the tentacula par- 

 tially or wholly red." TF. Thompson. " One day in July, 1840, 

 when my friends R. Ball, E. Forbes, and Gr. C. Hyndman, were 

 -hedging in Clew Bay, on our western coast, they were highly at- 

 tracted with the singular and beautiful appearance presented by 

 vast numbers of this species, which, in one portion of the bay, were 

 Ringing to the narrow stems of an extensive sub-marine wood of 

 Zostera marina; the position, too, being heightened by numerous 

 ipires of the Turritella terebra likewise rising from the Zostera, to 

 which their animal inhabitants were adherent." W. Thompson. 



" The body of this polype is of a light chesnut colour, and feels 

 perfectly smooth, though it be lengthways sulcated by a number of 

 sulci, that are frequently divided into three smaller ones, and are 

 continued into the dentated margin that surrounds the upper peri- 

 phery of the body, just beneath the insertion of the feelers. These 

 feelers, arising from the disk of the polype, are, according to the 

 age of the animal, between 120 and 200 in number : they exceed 

 he body, when expanded, by more than an inch in length, and are 

 of a beautiful sea-green colour, except towards their extremities, 

 which are covered with a lively red, like that of the rose. The disk 

 is of the same brown colour with the rest of the body, and contains 

 in its centre the mouth of the animal, which is an aperture of 

 various shape and diameter. The two varieties of this species 

 which I met with differ but little from the already described ani- 

 mal. The feelers of the one, instead of being green, are throughout 

 of a red colour, like that of the mahogany wood. The other variety 

 has pale ash-coloured feelers, marked with a small white line run- 

 ning along their back ; its body is of the same chesnut colour with 

 that of the first species ; but the sulci are not divided, nor has it a 

 dentated margin surrounding its upper periphery." Gcertner. 



Mr. R. Q. Couch has given an excellent description of this spe- 

 cies, which, he says, " appears to be a more active kind than any of 

 the Actinias : its tentacula are constantly expanded, and in con- 

 tinued, though gentle motion. It moves freely about from place to 

 place by a gliding motion of its base; or, by turning on its oral sur- 

 face, can move far more rapidly by means of its tentacula." 



Of his Actinia (Entacmaea) cereus, Ehrenberg says "Actiniam 

 cereum tentacula non retrahere posse fabulosum est." (Corall. 35.) 

 Hence it is probable that his species is not identical with ours, for 

 the testimony of Gtertner and Couch leaves no doubt on the fact 

 of its inability to withdraw the tentacula within the body. In a 



