THE OPELET. 163 



This is the species, doubtless, which attracted the notice 

 of the poet Southey, when, in the retirement of our wild 

 western shores, he was meditating his oriental poems, and 

 which he has interwoven into their beautiful imagery. 



" Meantime, with fuller reach and stronger swell, 

 Wave after wave advanced; 

 Each following billow lifted the last foam 

 That trembled on the sand with rainbow-hues : 

 The living flower, that, rooted to the rock, 

 Late from the thinner element 

 Shrank down within its purple stem to sleep, 

 Now feels the water, and, again 



Awakening, blossoms out 

 All its green anther-necks." * 



Whether in its native freedom, fringing the edge's of 

 some shallow basin in the red sandstone of the Devon 

 coast, or waving its silky tentacles " like streamers wide 

 outflowing," now exposed, now concealed among the black 

 fronds of some undulating Fucus to which it is clinging ; 

 or throwing them into fitful snake-like contortions as it 

 hangs from the rock-work of a well-kept aquarium, — the 

 Anthea, especially the emerald variety, is an exquisitely 

 beautiful object. Its unwonted liveliness also makes it 

 more than usually interesting in the last-named condition ; 

 for not only are its tentacles continually in motion, but the 

 animal itself is very restless, frequently changing its place, 

 and that with so much activity that the process can be 

 readily watched by the eye. 



For the following graphic note I am indebted to Mr. 

 Robert Patterson, of Belfast. I also have often marked the 

 beauty of Anthea under similar conditions, but never in 

 such numbers as he describes : — 



" I had on one occasion the pleasure of seeing the Anthea 

 under circumstances that I shall not readily forget. Out- 



* Thalaba, xii. 3. 

 M 2 



