182 Mr. E. Forbes on the British Actiniadae. 



Of the former the genus Discosoma is an example ; of the 

 latter Thalassianthos, both inhabitants of the Red Sea, where 

 they were discovered by Ruppell and Lauckart. 



III. When in Guernsey in August last, I found a species 

 of Actinia frequent among the rocks at low water in the island 

 of Herm, which I have reason to consider undescribed. It 

 was a cylindrical species, appearing as if pedunculated, from 

 the narrowness of the lower part of the body, about one inch 

 and a half high and one inch across the disk. The oral disk 

 is surrounded by numerous tapering tentacula in two rows, 

 the inner row consisting of sixteen long tentacula, three times 

 as long as the outer, placed at some distance from each other : 

 the outer forms a circle of numerous shorter tentacula, about 

 a quarter of an inch in length. The colour of the body is dark 

 brown with blue stripes, which bifurcate towards the base. 

 The tentacula are paler, as also the disk, which is ornamented 

 with bright blue stripes radiating from the mouth. This 

 pretty species I propose to name Actinia biserialis, and cha- 

 racterize as follows : — 



A. corpora elongato-cylindrico, brunneo, coeruleo-lineato ; 

 disco rotundo ; tentaculis in duabus seriebus digestis, se- 

 rie internd longissimd, externa numerosissimd. 



This Actinia has no tubercles on the disk. The nature of 

 such tubercles has not as yet been rightly investigated. Ac- 

 titiia mesembryanthemum, which generally has them, is some- 

 times without them, and so also with Actinia viduata ; but 

 wherever they are present in the latter species they are white, 

 whilst in the former they are blue, an additional argument for 

 the distinctness of the two species. 



When dredging on the Manx coast in Sept. I took several 

 specimens of Actinia bellis *, a species which has been little 

 noticed since Gaertner's time; and as doubts have been thrown 

 on its specific identity, I add a note or two drawn from the 

 living animal. The body is cylindrical, of a reddish or reddish 

 white colour, regularly and finely striated longitudinally and 

 transversely, and having glands of a bright yellow colour, 

 small and not very numerous, scattered over the surface. At 



* Of British authors, but not of Rupp. 



