Dr. Johnston's Catalogue of Zoophytes. 245 



Hab. In crevices of rocks between tide marks, and on shells, &c, in deep water, common. 



Body usually rather more than two inches in diameter, hemispherical when contracted, 

 covered with glandular warts, arranged sometimes distinctly in regular lines, sometimes 

 irregularly, and sometimes scarcely obvious. The tentacula are disposed within the 

 circumference of the oral disk in two close rows ; they are thick, short, obtuse, somewhat 

 compressed, almost always annulated or variegated with white and red. The animal pro- 

 trudes from the mouth at pleasure four or five vesicular, pellucid, scored lobes, which vary 

 in size according to their degree of evolution. When kept a few days in a basin of sea- 

 water it becomes much larger in all its parts, paler, and almost diaphanous. In this state 

 the tentacula elongate themselves, swell out, and are distinctly seen to be tubular. They 

 adhere tenaciously to foreign bodies, for their apices act as suckers, and carry prey to the 

 mouth in spite of all its struggles. 



This species is liable to great variation in colour and size, as may be presumed from the 

 number of synonymes which we have quoted as belonging undoubtedly to it. The more 

 remarkable varieties on this coast, may be distinguished thus : — 



\ Littoral. 



(a) Body smaller, orange coloured, clouded ; warts large, arranged in regular vertical 

 rows ; tentacula rather slender. This is the variety described by Gjertner, but his 

 figure represents it with only a single row of tentacula, The warts are placed in rows 

 from the top to the base, and " each row is composed of three files of glandulae, of 

 which the middle one is remarkably bigger than the two others." It is found in the 

 crevices of rocks, or attached to stones immersed in the sands, between tide marks ; 

 and it is always covered with a coating of broken shells and gravel adhering to the 

 glandular warts, and is thus so completely concealed that it becomes difficult to 

 recognise the creature, and to discern it from the rubbish surrounding it. 



■f -f Pelagic. 



(b) Body of a uniform fine scarlet colour, with pale warts ; tentacula variegated ; re- 

 markably beautiful, and not uncommon. 



fcj Body clouded with irregular scarlet and cream-coloured blotches ; warts small and 

 often obscure. 



(d) Body of a pale sulphur-yellow; glands equal, irregular; tentacula variegated ; oral 

 disk rose-coloured. This is a very beautiful variety, and seems to constitute the A. 

 equina of Sowerby. 



(e) Body of a uniform flesh or pale cream colour, the tentacula of the same colour and 

 without rings ; warts small, equal, and obscure. This appears to be the A. truncata of 

 British authors. Turt.Lin. iv. 101 ; Wern. Mem. i. 558 ; Perm. Brit. Zool. iv. 106. 



'(f) Body smooth, irregularly clouded with scarlet and whitish ; tentacula annulated with 

 red and white. When large this is the A. felina of Barbut ; when smaller it becomes 

 the A. coccinea of Muller, of which there is a tolerable figure in the Encyclop. Method, 

 tab. 72. fig. 1 — 3. A few minute warts are generally perceptible on the rim of the 

 oral disk, but I have seen it perfectly smooth. 



