378 A. K Verrill — New Actinians* 



more pairs are perfect and fertile. Their longitudinal muscles 

 are not very thick, but cover most of their breadth. 



The stomodseum is strongly plicated and has two large 

 siphonoglyphs. The ovaries, in some cases, contain large eggs, 

 like those carried on the outside. The egg-pits are not so deep 

 as in the preceding three species and at first they are confined 

 to the ectoderm, but as the embryos develop the pits become 

 larger and deeper, partly by a slight invection of the wall and 

 partly by a thinning of the ectoderm and mesogloea so that at 

 length they may be as deep as half the thickness of the wall, 

 but they never become like the deep pits of the preceding two 

 genera. No acontia could be found. 



This genus resembles, in some respects, the Paraetidoe, but 

 it seems to belong to the Bunodactidm, on account of the 

 sharply circumscribed sphincter muscle, although the latter 

 is not so much separated from the inner layers of the wall as 

 usual in that family. 



Epigonactis, gen. nov. 



Large stout Bunodactidse, with numerous large egg-pits on 

 the upper half of the column, arranged in more or less regular 

 rows and often crowded on the upper part, below the collar. 

 These pits, when fully formed, are deeply excavated in the thick 

 mesogloea and when containing eggs some of the latter may be 

 nearly or quite covered and concealed by the tissues growing 

 around them. In contraction there is a well-developed fold or 

 collar covered with numerous longitudinal grooves, but with- 

 out verrucse ; fosse smooth. Tentacles numerous, large, rather 

 long, sulcated in contraction. Sphincter muscle large, circum- 

 scribed. Perfect mesenteries numerous and fertile. Eggs 

 large. Wall firm and thick, in sections the layers are very dis- 

 tinct ; the circular muscular layer shows, in alcohol, as a well- 

 defined, continuous, brownish yellow layer ; mesogloea thick. 



Epigonactis fecunda, sp. nov. Figure 35. 



Body nearly cylindrical, about as high as broad in contrac- 

 tion ; base muscular and strongly adherent, not much wider 

 than the column, or even narrower in one example in alcohol. 

 Tentacles, in the smaller specimen, 72, stout, blunt, some of 

 them rather long, others contracted so that they are only 

 little longer than thick ; they are retracted in most cases so 

 that their tips project but little beyon'd the marginal collar but 

 are not infolded ; some of them appear to be perforated at tip, 

 and most are sulcated by contraction. They are arranged in two 

 or^ three marginal rows. Collar large and prominent, much 

 thickened, but without marginal tubercles ; fosse deep, with a 



