CHAPTER I. 



SUDDEN ENTHUSIASM FOR THE ANEMONES — IMPERFECT STATE OF OUR 

 KNOWLEDGE — LITERATURE OP THE SUBJECT — NO DISTINCTION BE- 

 TWEEN ANIMAL AND PLANT : SENSITIVENESS, LOCOMOTION, AND 

 CAPTURE OF FOOD — VORACITY OF THE ANEMONE — ITS PARALYSING 

 POWER DENIED— HABITS AND INSTINCTS— IS IT VIVIPAROUS ONLY ? 

 — VARIATIONS OF COLOUR. 



Since the British mind was all alive and trembling 

 with the zoological fervour excited by the appearance of 

 the hippopotamus in Regent's Park, no animal has 

 touched it to such fine issues, and such exuberant en- 

 thusiasm, as the lovely Sea- Anemone, now the orna- 

 ment of countless drawing-rooms, studies, and back 

 parlours, as well as the delight of unnumbered ama- 

 teurs. In glass tanks and elegant vases of various 

 device, in finger-glasses and common tumblers, the 

 lovely creature may be seen expanding its coronal of 

 tentacles, on mimic rocks, amid mimic forests of algas, 

 in mimic oceans — of pump-water and certain mixtures 

 of chlorides and carbonates, regulated by a " specific 

 gravity test." Fairy fingers minister to its wants, 

 removing dirt and slime from its body, feeding it with 

 bits of limpet or raw beef ; fingers, not of fairies, pull 

 it about with the remorseless curiosity of science, and 



