36 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [330] 
so as to show the internal lamelle; the tentacles are paler and more 
translucent, and usually whitish, but sometimes pale salmon. The 
tentacles, in full expansion, are over an inch long. A second elongated 
species of Sagartia (S. modesta) occurs buried up to its tentacles in the 
gravel and sand among rocks. This species is quite rare, and has a 
much thicker and firmer skin, which is nearly opaque and dull yellow- 
ish in color; the tentacles are shorter, with dark greenish markings at 
the base. 
The Halocampa producta (Plate XX XVIII, fig. 285) also occurs under 
the same circumstances with the last, though it may also be found 
on sandy shores, slightly attached to a shell or pebble, perhaps a foot 
beneath the surface, but in expansion it stretches its body so as to 
expand its tentacles at the surface, above its burrow, into which it 
quickly withdraws when disturbed. This species is remarkable for the 
great length and slenderness of its body in full extension ; for having 
only twenty tentacles, with swollen tips; and for the rows of suckers 
along the sides, to which it fastens grains of sand, &c. It has no dis- 
tinct disk at the base, which is bulbous and adapted for burrowing 
Its color is whitish, flesh-color, or pale salmon, with the suckers whit- 
ish. The tentacles usually have darker brown tips, but sometimes the 
tips are flake-white. In full expansion the length of large specimens 
is about a foot, and the diameter about a third of an inch, but in con- 
traction the body becomes much shorter and more swollen. 
The Astrangia Dane, which is the only true coral yet discovered on 
the coast of New England, is occasionally found on the under side of 
overhanging rocks, or in pools where it is seldom or never left dry. The 
coral forms incrusting patches, usually two or three inches across, and 
less than half an inch thick, composed of numerous crowded corallets, 
having stellate cells about an eighth of an inch in diameter. The liv- 
ing animals are white, and in expansion rise high above the cells and 
expand a circle of long, slender, minutely warted tentacles, which 
have enlarged tips. These coral-polyps, when expanded, resemble clus- 
ters of small, white sea-anemones, and like them they will seize their 
prey with their tentacles and transfer it to their mouths. They feed 
readily, in confinement, upon fragments of mollusca or crustacea. 
Several species of sponges also occur in the rocky pools and on the 
under sides of stones. The most conspicuous one is a bright red spe- 
cies, which forms irregular crusts, and rises up in the middle into 
many small, irregular, lobe-like branches. Another species forms 
broad, thin incrustations, of a sulphur-yellow color, on the under side 
of stones. These species have not been identified. A small, urn- 
shaped or oval species, with a large aperture at the summit, sur- 
rounded by a circle of slender, projecting spicula, occurs in the pools, 
and is probably the same as the Grantia ciliata of Europe. 
In addition to the numerous species already enumerated, most of 
which belong to groups that are essentially marine animals, there are 
