MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT FORT ERIN. 77 



white colour, but pink specimens are sometimes found. 

 No. 4, Sagartia venusta, is a representative of a large group 

 of small anemones to which the brilliant red and white 

 ones of the Sugar-loaf Cave, and of the Clets in the Calf 

 Sound, and the cave-dwellers (S. troglodytes) of pools at 

 Fleshwick and elsewhere all belong. Halcamjoa 

 chrysanthellum is a small and simple form found occa- 

 sionally, and Bunodes verrucosa (or B. gemmacea), No. 5, is 

 a pink anemone found in the pools at Port Erin and easily 

 recognisable from its colour and evenly roughened or 

 papillose surface of the body. The large "crass " (Tealia 

 crassicornis) is often brilliantly striped and spotted with 

 red and white, and usually attaches sand, shells and 

 small stones to the outside of the body. We have one 

 anemone (Anemonia sulcata), the " snakelet," which is 

 unable to retract the tentacles. Altogether we have found 

 more than 20 different kinds of sea-anemones in the 

 neighbourhood of Port Erin. 



Mr. J. A. Clubb, of the Liverpool Free Public 

 Museum, is our local authority on sea-anemones. 



Sea-anemones are the British representatives of the 

 reef-building corals of tropical seas. The coral animals 

 are colonies of polypes, each of which is somewhat like a 

 sea-anemone with a calcareous skeleton. 



Our nearest representative of the Mediterranean 

 animal which forms the red coral of commerce, is 

 Alcyonium digitatum, sometimes known as " Dead men's 

 fingers " or " Dead men's toes." This is a common, white, 

 or orange colony, of fleshy consistency and lobed shape 

 (see fig. VI., 1), which is found attached to the under side 

 of the great blocks of the old breakwater at low tide. The 

 surface of the colony is covered when alive and expanded 

 with anemone-like polypes, each of which has 8 fringed 

 tentacles surrounding a small central mouth. No. 2 shows 



