THE SEA-PINK. 569 



The beautiful OPELET, or Green-anemone, in the oleograph, may easily be recognized by 

 the great length of its many tentacles, which wave, and twist, and twine, and curl like so many 

 snakes. It has but little power of retracting the tentacles, and is, therefore, more conspicuous 

 than many other species. It is tolerably hardy, enduring confinement well, but requiring food 

 more often than is the case with the other Actiniae. Like all other members of this order, the 

 Opelet is able to arrest passing objects by means of the tentacles, and does so by the aid of a 

 wonderful array of weapons unexampled in the animal kingdom. 



If a portion of a tentacle be examined under a moderately powerful microscope, it will be 

 seen to be studded with tiny cells, in each of which lies coiled a dark- thread. On applying 

 pressure to the cell, it suddenly discharges the coiled thread, which proves on closer examina- 

 tion to be a long, wiry dart, often of wondrously complex structure, and capable of penetrating 

 into any soft substance with which it comes in contact. Elaborate accounts and drawings of 

 these cells and their contained weapons maybe found in Mr. Gosse's valuable " Sea- Anemones 

 and Corals," a work to which I gladly refer my readers for many interesting details respecting 

 the beautiful creatures on which we are at present engaged. 



Though the human skin be a tougher and harder substance than the prey generally 

 brought into contact with the tentacles, it yet can feel the effects of the individually minute 

 but collectively potent weapons with which these delicate tentacles are armed. A finger which 

 is touched by a tentacle is instantly conscious of being seized, as it were, and forced to adhere 

 to the soft waving membrane which it could crush with a single effort. On most persons this 

 adherence has no particular effect ; but those who possess delicate skins, and a sensitive 

 nervous system, are much worried by blisters and pustules occasioned by the assaults of these 

 microscopical weapons. A young eel, measuring six inches in length, and half an inch in 

 thickness, was killed in a few minutes by mere contact with the tentacles, and in a very short 

 time was tucked quietly away in the creature's stomach. These weapons are most numerous 

 at the tips of the tentacles, just where they are most needed. 



THE SCOTTISH PEAELET (Ilyanthus scoticus). This is a member of a genus once thought 

 very rare in Europe, but now necessarily expanded into a family, and found to contain a 

 considerable number of species. Most of the Pearlets are able to crawl over solid bodies ; 

 some inhabit tubes ; others are found burrowing in the sand ; while nearly all are able to puff 

 out the hinder part of the column with water. 



Little is known respecting the history of the Scottish Pearlet, save that it is a very rare 

 species, and has only been found in deep water. All the tentacles are veiy slender, and marked 

 with a dark line. 



The PUFFLETS are so called because they possess the power of puffing out the hinder part 

 of the column until it assumes a somewhat globular shape. A European species of this genus, 

 the PAINTED PUFFLET (Edwardsia calttmoi'pha), appears to be one of the burrowers, its body 

 being hidden beneath the sand, and the beautiful tentacles just protruding from the surface. 

 None of the Pufflets have many tentacles. 



WE may here briefly notice another example of the same family. 



The VESTLET is one of those members of the family which inhabit tubes. All of them are 

 remarkable from the fact that they possess no adherent base, but, as a compensation for this 

 deficiency, are furnished with an adherent power upon the stem, enabling them to crawl freely 

 over solid bodies. In this species, the tube is cylindrical, and very wide in comparison with 

 the dimensions of the inhabitant ; it is of tough, paper-like consistence, rather thick, and is 

 composed of many layers of intertwining fibres, mixed with sand and mud. The ordinary 

 length of the animal is six or seven inches, and the width of the flower-like plumes about an 

 inch and a half. Mr. Gosse found that he was able to remove the creature from its opaque 

 dwelling, and place it in a tube of glass, which the animal accepted as a useful substitute, 

 without troubling itself to reconstruct another house. 



THE beautiful creature called SEA-PINK, or PLUMOSE ANEMONE (Actinoloba dianthus\ 



