118 



JOUKNAL K. A. S. (CEYLON.) 



[Vol. III. 



In height 2^ inches ; narrow at middle and base. Trumpet- 

 shaped above. 



Distinguished from Horologia by the absence of the purple 

 zone on disc, and from its longer tentacles. The tubercules too 

 are less swollen, and there is a more marked space running 

 longitudinally on tentacles. 



Found with its body buried in sand in the Harbour of 

 Trincomalie. 



Dioscosoma (Actinodisous) ? Zeylanica. Kel. 



Body thick, short; pinkish, minutely punctulated with bright- 

 red ; near the disc the body is streaked longitudinally with 

 closely spotted purplish lines. The body is expanded into a 

 cup-like disc, of a bright vermillion-red colour, with radiating 

 white lines. Disc broad, expanded, and covering the whole 

 body, surface covered with small lines (three or four,) short, 

 conical, truncated, tentacles, disposed in rays, running from oral 

 opening to edge of disc, alternated with shorter ones which 

 proceed from middle-third of disc with two other shorter ones, 

 on each side, and the whole terminate at the margin in close 

 compact rays. On each side of oral opening, is a semi-globular 

 body with a central foramen, which communicates with the 

 oviducts. 



The colours of this singular form of anemone vary much ; at 

 times, it is all of a purplish-brown with greenish reflections, on 

 other occasions the uncovered space of disc is of an earthy- 

 brown colour, or green, and the rays of tentacles either entirely, 

 green, or maculated with purple and white. 



Breadth or disc when expanded from 4 to 5 inches. 



If this anemone is to be considered of a genus distinct from 

 Actinia, I think of reinstating the generic term of Actinodiscus, 

 given to a much smaller creature by M. Blainville, for it also, 

 like the species of Leuckart's Dioscosoma, has two discs, and the 

 animal, when waiting for its prey, is not unlike a depressed 

 hour glass in shape. It can withdraw the superior disc within, 

 when the red-spotted body is seen to be of a club-shaped 

 form. 



