330 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



so as to show the internal lamellre ; 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 produeta (Plate XXXVIII, 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 Dance, which is the only true coral yet discovered on 

 the coast of Xew 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 



