TRIBE I. ASTR^ACEA. 145 



This Actinia was found near the watering cove, Orange Har- 

 bour, adhering to stones and shells. The body is of a fulvous orange 

 (sometimes olive-brown), with an indistinct zone of black surrounding 

 the superior margin, and covered with a sort of raised network, pro- 

 duced by the corrugations of the external envelope. This reticulation 

 is most apparent and very regular, when the animal is fully expanded ; 

 but in a state of contraction (fig. 31, a) it disappears, and assumes a 

 simple rugose appearance. The disk is broadly dilated, and the five 

 lobes, or folds, are never effaced so as to leave the disk circular. 

 Tentacles short, subulate, and disposed in nine or ten close alternate 

 series; colour olivaceous; the inner ones largest, decreasing to mar- 

 ginal ones, which are mere papillse. The prominent mouth is of a 

 velvet purplish-black, coloured with olive at the margin of the 

 opening. The disk from base of tentacles to the mouth, is of a bright 

 ochreous colour, with strong radiating lines, crossed by others of a 

 pale olive-green. The protuberant mouth is oblong and rigid. 



In detaching the specimen from the rock, the base was lacerated 

 so as to expose the ovaries. It was placed directly in a jar of water, 

 and the next morning there were about fifty small ones adhering to 

 the bottom of the jar, from the size of a pin's head to three-eighths of 

 an inch in diameter. These little ones were observed to have the body 

 proportionally much longer than the parent, with fewer series of ten- 

 tacles the smallest had but two, and the largest five. They seemed 

 to be in full enjoyment of all the functions of life, attaching them- 

 selves quickly to the jar, shells, or even living animals, ten of them 

 having crawled upon a Sigaretus, and fixed themselves on his back. 

 This Actinia is remarkable for the opacity of all its parts; the colours 

 are all soft and rich, but even in the young they lack that transparency 

 usually met with in these zoophytes. A number of small Crustacea 

 (Spheroma and Gammaridse) were found in the stomach, captured 

 probably by means of the tentacles, to which every thing sticks that 

 comes in contact with them. J. P. COUTIIOUY. 



ACTINIA FUEGIENSIS. (Couthouy.} 



A. subcylindrica, 2" crassa, extus levis, supra infraque parce dilatata, 

 basis margine paulum undulata; tentaculis undique r emote que spar sis, 

 turgidis, 3'" longis ; ore parvulo, orbiculato, 5-partito: contracta, valde 

 depressa, convexa. 



37 



