ANTHOZOA OF THE WOODS HOLE REGION. 
241 
Habitat: The species has been found by me only in burrows on sandy and pebbly beaches usually 
just about or slightly below low-tide line, and always attached to a smooth cobblestone. In the aquarium 
it will adhere to almost any smooth support, or even the sides or bottom of the dish or aquarium. 
Distribution: The species is accounted ratlier rare. This may be due in part to the burrowing 
habit and to the close simulation in color of the tentacles and oral disk as they appear at the mouth of 
tlie burrow, rendering difficult its detection unless one looks for it with some care. But I have not 
found it in any such numbers as to suggest it as a common or abundant species. Verrill reports its 
distribution from Long Island Sound to Vineyard Sound. I have also taken it in Buzzards Bay adjacent 
to Woods Hole . 
Sagartia lucias Verrill. [PI. xli, fig. i and 2.] 
Sagartia lucicB Verrill, Am. Jour. Sci., 4th, vol. vi, 1898, p. 493. Parker, Am. Nat., vol. xxxiv, 1900; ibid., vol. xxxvi, 
1902, p. 491. Davenport, Mark Mem. Vol. , 
This beautiful little actinian, formerly a stranger to the fauna of Woods Hole, is now one of the most 
abundant of the littoral species, occurring almost every where — on rocks, eelgrass, fucus, shells, piles, 
etc. It is a small species, varying from lo to i8 mm. in height, by about 4 to 6 mm. in diameter. The 
body is smooth and highly contractile, dull olive greenish in color, with a variable number of vertical 
yellowish or orange stripes. Tentacles rather numerous, from 25 to 50, in several illy defined whorls, 
long and delicate, and very contractile, pale greenish, sometimes tinged with whitish. Oral disk vari- 
able as to shape and color; usually flat or concave, greenish, or sometimes with darker radial lines, and 
often with conspicuous bars at base of directive tentacles. It will more often be observed that only a 
single bar is present. Tliis is due to the fact that a common mode of fission, to be mentioned later, often 
leaves but one of these bars apparent. Acontia freely extruded through body or mouth. 
Reproduction: At certain times sexual propagation is active, and in his original description Verrill 
states that young embryos might be seen swimming in the cavity of the translucent tentacles. One 
may also find at certain times in sections of the animal the inclusion in the mesenteries of genital cells. 
So far as my own observation has gone, however, another mode seems to be of more general occurrence — 
an asexual one, namely, fission. I have repeatedly observed this process in all stages at almost any 
time during midsummer. It is not difficult, indeed, to observe the process from its inception to com- 
pletion, for it goes forward with surprising rapidity, the entire operation occupying from two to three 
hours, probably often less time. This is most easily studied in small aquaria, or even finger bowls or 
other glass dishes capable of holding a pint or a liter of water. 
Unlike the process which has been described for Metridmm and a few other species, in which fission 
begins at the mouth or oral disk and proceeds vertically downward, in 5 . lucia the very opposite direction 
is the one invariably followed, at least so far as I have observed. The first evidence of such fission may 
be noted in an extension of the pedal disk in a plane parallel with the oral axis. If this extension is to 
initiate the process of fission there will soon be distinguishable the appearance of a constriction of this 
elongated disk and the organization of a sort of double foot, in which may be seen the radial arrangements 
of the proximal ends of the mesenteries. The stretching of the disk is followed by a corresponding con- 
dition of the walls of the column, a condition which will soon be seen to involve the entire body and oral 
disk. Careful observation will show a gradual thinning of the basal disk as the stretching goes on more 
and more, and sooner or later the actual rupture of tire bottom of the disk, a rent appearing and passing 
in a direction at right angles to the oral axis. When this is clearly underway the pulling of the opposite 
halves of the body continues with increased vigor, and the rent may be followed in an upward and ver- 
tical direction, which enables the observer to actually see tlie inner organs, mesenteries, acontia, etc. 
A most curious phenomenon may be seen occasionally as the process continues, namely, as the pulling 
and consequent tearing proceeds there will occasionally be witnessed the explosion and shooting out of 
acontia, apparently in response to the physical stimulus involved in the rending of the tissues. It is as 
if at certain times tlie pulling was too vigorous and the consequent “hurt” more than the creature could 
stand with equanimity, and the extrusion of the acontia the expression of protest on the part of the 
