HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



185 



of Professor Babington, of Cambridge, that, so far as 

 he is aware, these spurless orchids have never before 

 been found in England. I hope my remarks may 

 have the effect for which they were intended, of 

 sending out some next year, to look more carefully 

 among the orchids, to see if these forms are really so 

 uncommon as they at present appear to be. 



John Rasor. 

 Woolpit, Bury St. Edmund's. 



OUR SEA-ANEMONES. 

 By H. C. C. M. 



WHERE did you get them from ? " 

 " What do you feed them on ? " 



" How often do you change the water, and where 

 do you get your supply of fresh water from ? " Such 

 are the questions we have answered repeatedly since 

 we began to keep anemones, and as our efforts have 

 been attended with much success, we venture to think 

 a record of our experiences may be acceptable to 

 many readers of Science-Gossip. 



One line afternoon, towards the close of our stay at 

 Beaumaris, in July 1883, we went down on to the 

 beach just as the tide reached its lowest ebb, bent on 

 anemone collecting. Our outfit consisted of a fish- 

 can and a pocket knife. The hammer and chisel 

 recommended in the books were left behind, being 

 unnecessary and burdensome. 



We had not proceeded far before we came upon 

 several specimens of the common daisy anemone 

 {Sagartia bellis), and as we had determined that this 

 species should be the subject of our first experiments, 

 we very carefully detached them with the blade of 

 our pocket knife from the large pebbles to which they 

 adhered, and transferred them to a small quantity of 

 clean sea-water in our fish-can. In less than an hour 

 we had collected more than sufficient for our purpose, 

 so we examined our captures, and, after selecting six 

 of the largest and healthiest-looking, we put the rest 

 back into the sea. "Have you been exploring a 

 bit ? " said a lady to us as we neared the pier. Our 

 explanation of the purpose of our exploration brought 

 a look to our friend's face that spoke volumes. What 

 attraction " nasty lumps of jelly " could have to young 

 men like us seemed a mystery, and we were going to 

 take them all the way to Manchester too ! On the 

 following morning we hired a boat, and taking with 

 us a gallon glass jar and some smaller bottles, we 

 rowed into mid-channel. Here we filled our jar and 

 bottles with sea-water and collected a quantity of 

 floating sea-weed in which to pack our anemones, 

 an operation which we performed just before leaving 

 Beaumaris for home in the afternoon. A layer of 

 wet sea-weed was put at the bottom of the fish-can, 

 the anemones laid upon it, and covered with another 

 layer of the same. 



Upon our arrival at home we inverted two propa- 



gating glasses, each about twelve inches in diameter, 

 fixing one in a turned wood stand, the other in a bed 

 of saw-dust contained in a glass sugar basin. Into 

 each glass we put a quantity of well-washed gravel 

 and two or three fragments of limestone, and after 

 pouring in the whole of our sea-water, we transferred 

 our anemones to their new home, putting three into 

 each glass. Our efforts were soon rewarded. Ten- 

 tacles were protruded, and after sundry peregrinations 

 round their glasses, the daisies settled down into the 

 positions which they occupy to-day. But imagine 

 our dismay when, a day or two later, we saw that the 

 water had assumed a milky hue. 



We thought we were doomed to disappointment, 

 especially as the milkiness seemed to increase. But 

 seeing that the anemones were fully expanded, and 

 apparently unmoved by the threatening state of 

 things, we took a glass syringe and with it vigorously 

 syringed the water. This had the desired effect. 

 The cloudiness soon disappeared, but we continued 

 to syringe the water almost daily for some time, and 

 still do so occasionally. 



Our next care was to provide the anemones with 

 suitable food. We bought some mussels, and with a 

 knife cut several of them in half. We then removed 

 the leaf-like gills with a pair of scissors, and after cut- 

 ting them into small pieces, gave a morsel to each with 

 a 'pair of wooden forceps. The jack-in-the-box-like 

 celerity with which the tentacles closed over the food, 

 and its speedy disappearance into the digestive cavity 

 showed that it was appreciated, and the completion 

 of the process of digestion was duly announced on 

 the following day by the ejection through the mouth 

 of rounded pellets composed of the inr.utritious 

 residue. These were carefully removed with a 

 pipette. Feeding time has since recurred at inter- 

 vals of three weeks or a month. One morning early 

 in the following month we noticed on the disk of one 

 of the daisies a small pearly-white body. What was 

 it '! A young one, sure enough. The next day saw 

 the infant fixed on a small pebble, beginning life on 

 its own account. Another and another soon followed, 

 and by the end of the year about twenty had made 

 their appearance. 



But the rate of increase in July and August last 

 year astonished us. Three adults, during those two 

 months, gave birth to at least seventy young ones, 

 about forty of which we distributed at a subsequent 

 meeting of the Manchester Microscopical Society. 

 During the earlier months of the summer we had fre- 

 quent opportunities of observing the very young 

 larvae. They are small, somewhat pear-shaped, 

 ciliated planulse, the pointed anterior pole of which 

 carries a tuft of longer cilia, the opposite end some- 

 what flattened, bearing the mouth in its centre. 

 They swim freely with a peculiar oscillatory move- 

 ment. 



The hot weather during the above-mentioned 

 months seemed to promote the growth of a filamen- 



