70 SAGARTIAD^. 



I scrambled across, just as of old ; the farther chasm (p. 39) ; 

 and the large dark tide-pool in which I had seen the Prawn ; 

 — all were exactly as when I first made acquaintance with 

 them six years ago. This last pool is still fringed with 

 Oarweeds crowded with Laomedea forests, and the farther 

 walls are still spotted over with daisy-like Snowy Ane- 

 mones, just where I saw them first, and in all probability 

 the very same identical individuals. 



But in the interim I had become familiar with the fair 

 nivea, in what I may call its metropolitan home. It is in 

 the numerous caverns and dark rock-pools into which the 

 limestone formation on the Pembroke coast is hollowed, 

 that this lovely species is seen to advantage ; especially in 

 the dark holes of Monkstone, the Caves of St. Catherine's 

 and St. Gowan's, and the overshadowed pools of Tenby 

 Head and Lidstep. Here, as we peer into the clear water 

 of these obscure wells, we see the Snowy Anemone studding 

 the rugged sides by hundreds, like bright stars on the mid- 

 night sky, singly and in constellations. Here, too, swarm 

 its congeners and companions, the equally lovely rosea and 

 venusta ; and this trio of graces are the very gems of the 

 Demetian rocks. 



When covered by water, nivea expands freely, and con- 

 tinues long unfolded ; but, in situations where it is left by 

 the tide, it either withdraws into its hole, or, if this be 

 placed on the side of a perpendicular or overhanging rock, 

 it hangs out in the form of a lengthened wart, with a drop 

 of water depending from its drooping head, like a dewdrop, 

 in the centre of which a speck of white reveals the peeping 

 tips of the contracted tentacles. 



Mr. Holdsworth has observed in this species that curious 

 form of elongation of the tentacles described under S. 

 miniata. Here, however, no fewer than ten or twelve of 

 the tentacles of the first and second rows hung doAvn, 



