THE WABTED COEKLET. 141 



By a curious coincidence, on the very day that I disco- 

 vered the preceding species, the post brought me a living 

 specimen of the present, from Mr. C. W. Peach, of Wick ; 

 and so the extreme north-east of Scotland and the south- 

 west of England conspired, at the same moment, to 

 augment our native Actinologia, each with a species of 

 a genus entirely new to science. 



The kindness of Mr. Peach had, it is true, sent me 

 a specimen of the same animal before this, viz. in the 

 preceding May ; but it had arrived dead, and in so 

 advanced a stage of decomposition, that I had not been able 

 even to form a conjecture of its characters. Observation of 

 the species is even now very defective ; for though the last 

 specimen sent arrived in health, and continued for upwards 

 of a month to live in my possession, yet, during the whole 

 of that period, I never saw it expand sufficiently to enable 

 me to describe either its tentacles or disk. For the above 

 description I am largely indebted to the notes and sketches 

 of Mr. Peach. 



The distinction between Phellia gausapata and P. muro- 

 cincta is slight; and future observation may resolve the 

 two species into one. The distance of their respective 

 localities, however, renders their identity less probable. 



The specimens were obtained from very narrow fissures 

 in a rock called Proudfoot, at the entrance of Wick Bay, in 

 Caithness. This rock is accessible only at the low water 

 of spring-tides. The first specimen obtained, which was 

 much larger than the second, remained unattached for 

 several days, while in Mr. Peach's possession, but appeared 

 healthy. The smaller one sent to me remained adherent to 

 its original fragment of rock for more than a month ; at the 

 end of which time I lifted the base from its attachment. 

 It was in doing this that I saw the acontia copiously 

 discharged from the offended base. 



