82 VOYAGE FROM INDIA TO SIAM AND MALACCA. 



pressed together at their base that I believed the whole ani- 

 mal to be an Asterias from the distance. These arms were 

 striped in many colours — white, red, yellow, and blue on a grey 

 ground. I found several more, and tried to dig- them out, but 

 they sat more than one foot deep in the sand and clung- to 

 some stones, so that I only succeeded in unfastening- two different 

 kinds. The body of one of them is covered with a rather hard 

 skin, which has the brightest red colour, and when the animal 

 has drawn itself together it is two inches in diameter and is 

 as long as a hand is wide ; the skin of the other kind was 

 grey and soft and it had half the size of the other. All others 

 broke before I could unfasten them from the stones. 



I could not make out the different species of corals on 

 account of the rapid flood, but their little infusory animals were 

 all hydra. The stretched body is brown and the arms are white 

 and eight in number. These infusory animals clung to different 

 small stones or pieces of wood, and they form large lumps in the 

 sea, but as soon as either the stones or the wood was taken out 

 of the water there was nothing to be discovered upon them 

 than a yellow crust full of small warts. I saw a coloured Doris; 

 the back was almost quite flat, the lower edge was projecting 

 and wav}^ ; the surface had fine scars, the size was one and half 

 inch long by one inch wide. The whole body was black, 

 only the wavy edge was white and had black stripes. I also saw 

 the common Indian Doris, which I have so often found near 

 Jaffnapatnam ; both these species do not have the usual opening- 

 on their backo The infusory animals of the sea amaranth, 

 Mailrepora Ainaranthis, had all stretched out their arms, which 

 were of a splendid green on the upper side; underneath they were 

 ash-grey. All these arms, which stand in a circle-shaped mouth, 

 are very numerous and like fingers. I have seen them as long 

 as half an inch and even one inch. This mouth in the disco 

 consists of swollen grey lips with fine milk-white stripes ; the 

 thin body is underneath this mouth. There are as many different 

 animals as there are little holes in every amarantho, which shows 

 clearly that they cannot be counted among the Medusas, but 

 much rather among the Actinia ; all the different kinds of polyps, 

 which live between the stones and were as thick as a finger 

 and one inch long, belonged to this ssi^iaae kind. 



I obtained se\ eral Gorgonia, the animals of which had come 



