28 SAGARTIAD.E. 



as many ; the fourth again doubled ; the fifth increasing in about the 

 same proportion; and the sixth in3luding about thrice as many as the 

 fifth. Thus the total number may be about five hundred. Those of the 

 first row usually stand erect, the others decline more and more as they 

 recede, until the last two or three rows lie quite horizontally on the disk, 

 to which the sixth row forms an exquisite fringe. Those of the first row 

 rarely exceed one-fourth of an inch in height, and the others diminish 

 regularly ; those of the sixth are very minute ; the longest (for they are 

 not equal) scarcely exceeding the sixteenth of an inch in length, and some 

 being mere tubercles ; these are slender, and set so close together, that 

 sixty are contained within an inch. Those of the inner rows are usually 

 marked with a depressed line or groove, down the middle of the front. 

 Mouth. Not raised on a cone. Lip moderately thin, finely furrowed. 



Colour. 



Column. Lower part flesh-colour, often flushing into pink; gradually 

 paling upward to white, drab, or buff in the middle part : this as gradually 

 becoming dull violet on the upper third, where the suckers usually are 

 conspicuous as pale spots. 



Disk. Dark brown or black, the radii separated by fine lines of rich 

 vermilion, commencing at the mouth, and diverging till they meet the 

 tentacles, passing a little way up the sides of each. 



TENTACLE OF S. BELLIS (front). 



Tentacles. Yellowish-brown, studded with whitish specks, and varied 

 with white or grey patches. There is commonly a dark-brown space near 

 the base, bounded, above and below, by a band of pure white. Frequently 

 groups of tentacles thus mottled alternate with equal groups of uniformly 

 dull-brown ones; the regions of the discal border from which they re- 

 spectively spring, corresponding in some measure, being either brown or 

 lavender grey. In many specimens a single tentacle, or sometimes two 

 opposite ones, of the first series, are rather larger than the rest, and of an 

 unspotted cream-white ; when these occur, it is generally in connexion 

 with one or two white gonidial radii. In other specimens there is no 

 trace of such a distinction. 



Mouth. Lip and throat white.* 



* The student will please to observe that the specific description is the 

 description of but one condition, or variety. It is convenient to have a 

 starting-point or standard of comparison, but it must not be supposed that 

 this particular condition is the one proper to the species, and that the other 



