THE ORANGE-DISKED ANEMONE. 65 



little broken debris of shells, and to stick them over their 

 bodies, in the way children stick broken china on heaps of 

 mud, in our Irish villages. 



" But new to me as was E. lividits, and splendid as the 

 really tine crassicornes were — they were of that pretty 

 healthy white and pink variety — yet they were surpassed 

 by your Sag. venusta, which with S. rosea sprouted out of 

 every fissure. The former is, I think, the most exquisite 

 of our Irish Anemones. In your figure in ' Tenby,' the 

 tentacles are hardly white enough, and no painting can do 

 justice to the clear orange. Book it and S. rosea, both 

 very distinct from any other of our species. I saw other 

 Anemones that I suspect will turn out new species ; but 

 what could twenty minutes and an insect-net effect in 

 'catching' such things as Sagarts? Why, touch them 

 roughly and — they're gone ! If spared, I will visit them 

 again ; and you shall see them, I hope, too : for if I spend 

 a month in Bantry Bay, say next June or July, I can 

 easily send you my Actinia captures ; — that is, if you 

 won't visit Ireland. It is as pleasant as Jamaica." 



To turn from these tempting scenes of wild nature ; — our 

 beautiful Orange-disk is easily made happy in captivity : 

 where, indeed, fed daily by fair fingers, and admired by 

 bright eyes, it would argue badly for its temper if it were 

 not. It is soon at home, and becomes one of the most 

 brilliant ornaments of the Aquarium, expanding its lovely 

 disk freely, fringed with its elegant border of snow-white 

 tentacles, and thus making up in beauty what it lacks in size. 

 It will survive an indefinite period, if it receive a moderate 

 degree of attention. The observations which I have made 

 on the treatment of & rosea will apply with equal force to 

 this species and to the following. 



Mr. Holdsworth informs me that he has witnessed the 

 production of new individuals from fragments spontaneously 



F 



