THE PARASITIC ANEMONE. 



113 



different times, sometimes being blunt and nearly cylindrical, at others 

 tapering to a fine point. 



Mouth. The centre of the disk gradually swells into a stout low cone, 

 in the centre of which is the mouth, edged with a thick furrowed lip. 



Acontia. White, long, and as thick as sewing-cotton ; projected on the 

 slightest irritation, and in the most copious profusion, both from the 

 mouth and from the loop-holes of the column. 



Colour. 



Column. Ground-colour, a dirty white or drab; often slightly tinged 

 with pale yellow : longitudinal bands of dark wood-brown, reddish- or 

 purplish-brown, run down the body, sometimes very regularly, and set so 

 closely as to leave the intermediate bands of ground-colour much narrower 

 than themselves : at other times these bands are narrower, more separated, 

 or broken into chains of dark spots. Immediately around the base the 

 bands usually 3ub-divide, and are varied by a single series of upright oblong 

 spots of rich yellow, which are commonly margined with a deeper brown 

 than that of the bands. The whole column is surrounded by 

 close-set faint transverse lines of pale hue, sometimes scarcely 

 distinguishable, except near the summit, where they cut the 

 bands in such a manner as to form, with other similar lines 

 which there run lengthwise, a reticulated pattern. 



Dish. Pellucid yellowish-white, often tinged with faint 

 purple about the half-radial region, and marked with a circle 

 of six squarish patches of opaque white. 



Tentacles. Pellucid, faintly tinged with flesh-colour, cream- 

 yellow, or purplish; each marked with a dark purplish or 

 brown line down each side, which is broken into about five 

 dashes. The sub-marginal rows, which from their minuteness 

 may be compared to a fringe, are frequently divided into alter- 

 nate patches of colour ; — a patch of pale tentacles, then one 

 of purplish, — -six groups of each colour completing the circle. 

 These alternations do not conceal the lateral lines of the ten- 

 tacles; and though sometimes beautifully distinct, they are at tentacle 

 others scarcely perceptible. The pale patches correspond to (front). 

 the square spots of white on the disk. 



Mouth. Opaque white, or cream -white. 



Size. 



It frequently attains a height of four inches, with a diameter of two and 

 a half in column, and three and a half in flower. 



Locality. 

 The shores of the British Channel, the Mediterranean and Red Seas ; 

 in the coralline zone. For the most part adhering to such shells as are 

 inhabited by the Soldier-crab. 



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