124 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



tions of every one who has had any experience cannot 

 but be welcome. 



The literature of the subject is extensive if we in- 

 clude all the passing notices made by naturalists from 

 Aristotle downwards ; but the capital works are few. 

 What Aristotle says of them is accurate enough for 

 the most part,* although the details are scanty. Owing 

 to his commentators being less accurately informed 

 than he was, they have misunderstood the passage 

 wherein he sjDeaks of the sea-nettles quitting their 

 rocks in quest of food at night, and have supposed that 

 he alluded to the Medusf<^. But by a-/,a'K7i(pri he indu- 

 bitably meant the Actiniae as well as the Medusas ; 

 and he was right in saying they sometimes quitted the 

 rocks to which they had fixed themselves. Rondelet 

 adopted Aristotle's term of Urticce "marince, adding to it 

 the epithet oiadfixce^to distinguish them from the errant 

 Medusae. Reaumur in 1710 began to investigate them 

 more seriously than any of his predecessors had done ; 

 but the Abbe Dicquemare must be counted as the first 

 good authority on the subject. • He furnished the most 

 extensive and reliable information, in three papers of 

 the PhilosopJiical Transactions for the years 1773, 

 1775, and 1777. The name of Actinia was adopted 

 by Linnaeus from Patrick Brown, and has since been 

 universally accepted. The reader will understand, 

 therefore, that Sea- Anemone and Actinia are convert- 



* Aristotle : Hist. Animal, lib. i. c. i. 8, and lib. iv. c. vi., 4. 

 There are probably other passages, but these are all I have been able 

 to find. 



