304 ZOANTHIDJE. 



Size. 

 Column about one-eighth of an inch high, and one-twelfth wide. 



Locality. 

 Torbay ; on rock, between tide-marks. 



This very distinct and interesting little Zoanthus 

 occurred in a large colony at Broadsands, near Brixham, 

 in March, 1859. They were spread on a rock of soft 

 red sandstone, and so numerously, that, in the fragment 

 which came into my possession, I counted sixty polypes 

 in a space of one-and-a-half inch square. At first 

 their character was much disguised by the crowded sand- 

 tubes of a very minute Terebella, out of the tangled masses 

 of which the Zoanthi were peeping. When these were 

 cleared away by the careful application of a needle-point 

 and a hair-pencil, the basal expansion was apparent, an 

 irregular broad band, with several polypes abreast, as 

 described above. The texture of the band appears less 

 compact than in the preceding species, with which I com- 

 pared it, having a more cellular appearance ; the grains of 

 sand too are coarser. 



The species is hardy, my specimens being healthy at 

 the present time, after three months' captivity. They are 

 evidently diurnal in their habits and predilections, gene- 

 rally expanding under the stimulus of sunlight, but always 

 closing at night. When the polype is irritated it shrinks 

 nearly to the epidermis, and from the whole summit throws 

 off a mucus, which presently becomes membranous, and 

 seems identical with the epidermis. 



Couchii. 



[Solanderi.] 



SULCATUS. 



Phellia. 



