270 ~ILYANTHID.E. 



Locality. 



Th3 Menai Strait, in North Wales, and the Channel Islands ; between 

 tide-marks. 



Varieties. 



Specimens differ considerably in the depth and extent of the brown 

 tints of the upper parts. In some the maronne or red-brown hue 

 extends across the disk; in others it is scarcely discernible on the 

 tentacles. 



The present species has generally been supposed to be 

 identical with that of the Mediterranean, of which M. Jules 

 Haime has given an elaborate memoir (Ann. d. Sci. Nat. 

 Ser. 4, i. 341). But in that species the arrangement of 

 the mesenteric septa, — which M. Milne Edwards (Hist. 

 Nat. des Coralliaires, i. 308) gives as generic, differs so 

 importantly from what obtains in ours, as to demand a 

 revision of the generic characters. I have therefore con- 

 stituted it a new species, naming it after Mr. W. Alford 

 Lloyd, to whose intelligent enterprise the study of Actino- 

 logy is so greatly indebted, and to whom we owe our 

 acquaintance with this very animal. 



In the summer of 1856, this gentleman first obtained 

 specimens from the Menai Strait, a fact which I noticed in 

 the " Annals N. H." for July of that year, assigning the 

 species to the Edwardsia vestita of E. Forbes. Mr. Lloyd 

 also himself about the same time communicated two notes 

 on the animal to the " Zoologist," in one of which he stated 

 that he had then obtained eighteen specimens. Since that 

 period he has procured many more, but, as I believe, only 

 from the same locality. Some of these specimens he has 

 courteously presented to me, and has thus enabled me 

 to become personally familiar with the habits of the 

 species. 



