124 NEW INVERTEBRATA FROM 



the species. My specimens agree in the two most impor- 

 tant features regarded byHaeckel as characteristic, viz. : a 

 thin walled umbrella and very long slender mouth tube. 



ACTINOZOA. 

 BUNODES CALIFORNICA sp. nov. 



(PLATE VI, FIGS. 5, 6.) 



This species is the most common Actinozoan at Santa 

 Barbara. It forms colonies upon the rocks even left bare 

 at low tide, and has a habit of covering itself with small 

 stones or bits of shell so that such a colony on the rocks 

 resembles an encrustation of pebbles. 1 These colonies pro- 

 tected by their sandy covering are exposed for an hour or 

 more to the burning rays of the sun and are found often- 

 times six or seven feet from low-water mark. The differ- 

 ent members of the colony are closely huddled together, 

 and when contracted, as they necessarily are when in such 

 masses, could readily be mistaken for numbers of Ascidiaus. 

 The majority of the specimens are about the size of a sil- 

 ver half dollar, but large examples were found several 

 inches in diameter. The sand covering the body is found 

 most abundantly on the oral pole of the animal on the ex- 

 ternal walls. This is really the only exposed portion, the 

 individuals are so closely crowded together. Bunodes 

 clings voluntarily to the bits of sand which forms its coat- 



l Zoanthus socialis has this same habit of covering itself with small foreign bod- 

 ies, sand and fragments of shell. It is supposed that the members of the colony 

 grasp the grains of sand when in mechanical suspension in the sea water. Several 

 genera and species of Actiniavia have the same habit, but I have never seen it as 

 well marked as in B. Californica. McMurrich (Journal of Morphology, Vol. Ill, 

 No. 1, pp. 65, 66) describes in a new species of Gemmaria, O. isolata, enclosures 

 of sand and other foreign bodies in the "Mesogloea." 



Students of the Hydromedusse following McCrady's suggestion use the term 

 Gemmaria for a genus of Medusae. It might be better to adopt another name for 

 the Actiniarian genus, Gemmaria of Duchassaing and Michelotti; still there is 

 something to be said in support of the use of the name for the Actinian. 



