24-6 Dr. Johnston's Catalogue of Zoophytes. 



The pelagic varieties are never covered with the extraneous coat of the littoral, but are 

 clean, more vividly coloured, and larger. The base is coloured like the body in all the va- 

 rieties. The exterior margin of the oral disk is often tinted with a dirty green, as well as 

 the vesicular lobes of the mouth ; and the tentacula, when in a state of retraction, some- 

 times become grooved in a longitudinal direction. The glands are small, and never very 

 evidently arranged in rows. When magnified, they are seen to be perfectly colourless : 

 they appear to have a pore in the centre, and are seated under the true skin, which is 

 hard, cartilaginous, and colourless, for the colour depends on a thin, mucous coat laid over 

 the whole. 



3. A. plumosa, body cylindraceous, cream-coloured, smooth ; oral disk marked in the cen- 



tre with clavate radiating bands ; tentacula numerous, irregular, forming round the 

 margin a thick filamentous fringe. 



A. plumosa, Turt. Lin. iv. 100 ; Turt. Br. Faun. 130 ; Lam. Hist. Nat. iii. 68 ; Cuv. 

 Reg. Anim. iii, 291. 



A. senilis, Barb. Gen. Verm. 53. tab 5. fig. 5. 



Hab. Berwick Bay ; not uncommon in deep water. 



When contracted this Actinia is somewhat cylindrical, deeply wrinkled in two or three 

 places, about three inches long, and one half of that in diameter, but when fully expanded, 

 about five inches : it is quite smooth, and of a uniform whitish or cream colour. The cen- 

 tre of the oral disk is ornamented with a circle of white bands radiating from the mouth . 

 and beyond them a number of lines, with narrow pellucid interspaces, run across to the 

 circumference. From these interspaces the tentacula arise : they are tapered, the largest 

 about one inch long, watery-white, simple, smooth, irregularly dispersed, and very nume- 

 rous. They are all placed between the mouth and the margin, which is encircled with a 

 dense fringe of inimitable beauty ; it is composed of innumerable short tentacula or fila- 

 ments forming an even, thick, furry border. 



I have seen specimens of this species, which is by far the finest marine animal of our 

 bay, from the size of a split pea to fully five inches in diameter, and have found it, in all 

 these intermediate sizes, uniform in colour and in shape. Yet I agree with Cuvier in think- 

 ing it probable that the Actinia dianthus of Ellis may be a variety, having the oral disk 

 lobed from peculiarity of position, or from the the voluntary contractions of the animal. 



** Tentacula non-retractile. 



4. A. Tuedice, body thick, somewhat cylindrical, smooth or wrinkled with circular folds ; 



tentacula thick, numerous, conical, longitudiually striate, chesnut-coloured, shorter than 

 the body. 

 A. tuediae, Johnston in Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist. v. p. 100, fig. 58. 

 Hab. Berwick Bay, in deep water. 



The body, when relaxed, generally measures three inches in length, and about the same 

 in diameter ; it is of a uniform reddish or brownish orange colour, and either smooth or 

 contracted at pleasure into circular folds. The base is smooth and orange-coloured, with a 

 thin areolar skin. The mouth is ever varying in size and form ; and there are often 



