ITS FORM AND COLOURS. 97 



if in like manner deprived of light, draivn. I tliink 

 two inches may be the limit of length to which I 

 have seen mine extend. 



The body is of a delicate buff hue, elegantly pen- 

 cilled with fine irregular lines of dark brown, running 

 in longitudinal bands, which diverge from the disk. 

 As these bands approach the base they become more 

 defined, and the contrast between the dark rich brown 

 and the buff is beautifully distinct, especially as the 

 alternating light and dark bands are about equal in 

 diameter, and pretty regular. A few blackish-brown 

 specks are scattered around the body near the edge 

 of the disk. 



The oral disk is rather wide, and prettily mottled 

 and speckled with pale and dark brown, and white 

 (fig. 2). On examination this effect is seen to be pro- 

 duced by the cod verging ribs which reach from the 

 individual tentacles to the mouth, and which are 

 common to the genus. These run in sub-parallel, 

 but irregularly undulating lines ; they are raised in 

 the middle, with a depression between them, and are 

 delicately striated transversely. Each rib has a dark 

 brown spot on each side, at the very base of the ten- 

 tacle, it is then pale brown for about half-way to the 

 mouth, when it becomes blackish, then white, then 

 blackish again, and finally pale as it is lost in the 

 oral aperture. The narrow lines that separate the 

 ribs are whitish, and the different distances from the 

 centre at which the black and white spots occur in the 

 alternate tentacle-ribs, (those of the inner rows crush- 

 ing out, as it were, the others) give the pretty speckled 

 appearance, which is I think characteristic. From 



K 



