Actinaria g 129 



Family EDWARDSID^ Andres, 1880. 



Column elongated, slender, without an adherent basal disk; usually with 

 the thicker middle portion, or scapus, covered with a firmly adherent dark 

 epidermal coating, into which the naked capitulum and the aboral naked area 

 can be retracted. Sometimes without a central coating. Tentacles mostly 

 slender, rather few, often 16, rarely up to 48. Perfect mesenteries fertile; 

 usually only eight; two pairs of directives; 4 lateral ones not paired; all others 

 narrow and imperfect. Sometimes small rudiments of few or many additional 

 ones occur near the disk. Some species are able to adhere to stones, etc., 

 by means of their sides. Apparently no aboral pore. The species usually live 

 in tubes and crevices or buried nearly up to the tentacles in sand or mud; some 

 are parasitic on jelly-fish while young (e.g. Edivardsia leidyi Verrill, of the New 

 England coast.) 



Edwardsia Quatr. 



Edivardsia {pars) Quartrefages, Comptes rendus, Acad. Sci., Paris, XIV, 

 p. 630, 1842; Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 2, Vol. XVIII, p. 65-109, 

 1842. GossE (pars), Actin. Brit., p. 254, 1860. Torrey, op. cit., 1902, p. 376. 

 Andres, op. cit., p. 90, 1884, (restricted). 



Tentacles usually 16, often alternately longer and shorter. Scapus covered 

 with a firmly adherent epidermal coating; its wall is thickened by a thick 

 mesoglceal layer, much thicker than in the capitulum or physa. Rudimentary 

 mesenteries about eight; sometimes more near the disk. 



The species having more than 16 tentacles were separated from this genus 

 by Andres, under the name Edwardsiella. 



Edwardsia elegans Verrill. 

 Edwardsia elegans Verrill, op. cit., 1869, p. 162. Andres, op. cit., 1884, p. 95. 

 Plate XXI; Figs. 5, 6. Text Figure 17. 



The type specimen of this species was immature. Its length in life was 

 25 mm.; diameter, 2-5 mm.; length of tentacles, 2-5 mm.; length of bare capit- 

 tulum, 2 -5 mm. 



Specimens subsequently found in the same locaUties were four or five times 

 as large, up to 100 to 150 mm. long, and differed somewhat in colour. They 

 undoubtedly belong to the same species, but for convenience may be designated 

 as variety pida. 



The type had 16 slender tentacles, which were pale flesh-colour with a 

 median light orange-red line beneath, distally; the capitulum was pale pink, 

 with 8 white lines due to insertions of the mesenteries; disk pale flesh-colour; 

 labial lobes pale yellow. Taken at low tide at Clark's ledge, near Eastport, 

 Maine, and at Indian island, N.B., Aug. 21, 1864. 



Edwardsia elegans, variety picta. New variety. 



Plate XXI; Figs. 5, 6. Text Figure 17. 



A large and long form, the longest being 150 mm. long. A hving specimen 

 75 mm. long and 5 mm. in diameter, had the naked basal portion 25 mm. long. 



9343—9 



