THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 321 



contracting to a very diminutive size, so as easily 

 to elude observation. The same reefs are enlivened 

 also b}' numbers of another species of Sea-anemone 

 (Zoanthus), which cover large surfaces of the rook, 

 like beautiful carpets or mats of wide expanse. 

 "When opened beneath the water, under the beams 

 of the sun, they display a series of squares with 

 elevated margins, the interior being of a bright 

 green, the exterior of a fawn colour. These, also, 

 contract instantly on the slightest touch; and thus 

 entire fields of them, being connected together by 

 a common fleshy disk upon the rock, are changed 

 in a moment, as if by magic, from brilliant green to 

 dull brown, which again, as they recover from their 

 alarm, is soon replaced by the verdant hue. 



Numerous species of Squid and Cuttle are ob- 

 served in the Pacific, several of which have the 

 power of making long leaps out of the water, even 

 to the same height and distance as the Flying- fish, 

 whence these kinds are denominated by seamen, 

 Flying Squid. One of these, which appears to have 

 been an nychoteuthis, is described by Mr. F. D. Ben- 

 nett, as having fallen, in one of its leaps, upon the 

 deck of the ship in which he was sailing. The 

 whole class to which these animals belong is re- 

 markable for the powerful apparatus with which the 

 animals are endowed for seizing prey, in the nume- 

 rous long and flexible arms, furnished with cup- 

 like suckers, which forcibly adhere to any object 

 at the will of the creature. But the genus just 

 mentioned is favoured above its fellows; for, in ad- 



dition to the usual structure, there is placed in each 

 21 



