528 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



was alive up to the time of going to press; it was fed with living 

 specimens of " Thaumantias." It has undergone several develop- 

 mental phases, being at first of a uniform yellowish colour, with 

 rudimentary tentacles ; though short, the tentacles grew longer, and 

 were tinged with brown and yellowish white ; the disk also became 

 variegated, and the body translucent, revealing the yellow oesophagus. 

 Strethill Wright, in Proc. Phys. Soc, Edinb., ii., 1859, p. 91, and 

 again, in Neio Edinh. Phil. Jour., vii., 1860, p. 156, which was re- 

 printed in Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (3), viii., 1861, p. 132, published a 

 somewhat imperfect account of two specimens of an Anemone parasitic 

 on Thaumantias from the Fii-th of Forth. I can find no printed 

 record of another similar capture in England; but Prof. A. Macalister, 

 M.D., F.R.S., of Cambridge (late of Dublin), informs me, by letter, 

 that he has met with the Halcampa fultoni, St. "Wright, and perhaps- 

 with another form, but not in Dublin Bay. As my observations on 

 this interesting anemone are not yet completed, I forbear from describ- 

 ing it, but I hope in due course to be in a position to give a complete 

 and illustrated account of its structure and further development. For 

 the present I will merely state that S. "Wright's specimens had twelve 

 tentacles and mesenteries, and, if so, probably belonged to the genua 

 Bicidium Agassiz {= Philo^nedusa, Miiller?). The Irish specimens have 

 eight tentacles, but twelve mesenteries. There is a remarkable 

 double bi-lateral symmetry in this Anemone — one axis is marked by a 

 single tentacle at each end of the disk, with a lateral group of three 

 on either side, the spaces between the single tentacles and the groups 

 being markedly greater than those between the units of the latter. 

 The twelve mesenteries are so arranged that there is an intermesen- 

 terial chamber without a corresponding tentacle on each side of the 

 single tentacles. The second axis is at right angles to the former, and 

 is marked by a deep notch of the wide mouth opposite to the cen- 

 tral tentacle of one of the groups of thi^ee. This must be regarded 

 as a siphonoglyphe, as it is ciliated ; the cilia appear to work out- 

 wards." 



[Mr. Jacob di'edged CaryophylUa smithvi, Stokes, var. esmerelda, on 

 June 6, 1885, under the Martello Tower on Dalkey Island, close to the 

 shore. Antedon rosacea, Link., was very abundant at the same spot.] 



I have only EcMnocyamus pusillus to add to the B. A. List of 

 Ecbtnoderniata ; it was dredged off Bray Head, in twenty-three 

 fathoms, together with Echinus miliaris, Miill. It is common in 

 Belfast Lough and other parts of the coast. 



[On September 24, 1885, Mr. Jacob, and on the 26th, Mr. G. T. 

 Dixon, each found a single specimen of 8ynapta inhcerens, 0. F. Miill., 

 at Malahide. It is very remarkable that this is the first time, so far 



6 Since writing the above the Anemone has died. The missing tentacles had 

 just commenced to appear ; and although I have, at present, nothing much more 

 definite to add to the above account, I am strongly inclined to regard this parasite 

 as the larval form of Hulcampa chrysantheUum. 



