THE ORANGE STRIPED ANEMONE. 367 



annelids, etc., which are seized by the tentacles, rendered inno- 

 cuous by the acontia and then gradually manipulated into the 

 mouth. Fig. 4 represents an individual capturing a beach flea, 

 which had been steered into the blossom of tentacles with a 

 broom splinter. All sorts of sufficiently soft food substances, 

 either living or dead, are taken undiscriminatingly. Numerous 

 individuals were fed by the writer, both in their natural habitats, 

 undisturbed, and in aquaria, with pieces of fish, both fresh and 

 decaying; clam, mussel, beef, bread, salt pork, insects, etc., 

 which the anemones seized and devoured with the same impartial 

 gusto which they showed for living creatures. They however re- 

 jected hard substances, such as sand grains, bits of shell, wood, 

 etc. Beef juice, dexterously squirted upon one portion of the 

 blossom of tentacles with a finely drawn out pipette, caused 

 them to respond at once by throwing over a large number of 

 tentacles to that side whence the stimulus had come and en- 

 deavoring to entrap some object. Frequently the tip of the 

 pipette would be grasped, only to be relinquished again. Foreign 

 substances, i.e., those not usable as food, were pushed to one side 

 of the blossom of tentacles and allowed to fall off. The food 

 which seems to form the bulk of their intake consists of the 

 smaller crustaces, such as small beach fleas (Orchestia agilis), 

 small clam worms (Nereis), and other small marine worms, very 

 small crabs in the soft shelled stage just after a molt, chiefly the 

 mud crab (Panopeus), crushed rock barnacles (Balanus balan- 

 oides), very small fish fry, and heterogeneous particles of animal 

 tissue which the tidal and wave currents chance to float by. 

 A lessening of the food supply in some particular neighborhood 

 apparently is the moving cause that sets many individuals roving 

 by hanging head downwards from the surface film of the water 

 and being borne here and there by currents until a more fruitful 

 locality is discovered. Rarely there was found a more ambitious 

 individual which had fastened upon the shell of a periwinkle 

 (Littorina liitoria), and was continually being carried into 

 pastures new. 



The enemies of Sagartia are numerous. Among them the most 

 important are: various species of rock bottom feeding fishes, 

 rock and mud crabs, starfishes (Asterias, and others), and the 



