136 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



knows who has handled them. I never perceived this 

 stinging sensation myself ; and Dr Landsborough says : 

 " From my own experience I can say nothing as to 

 this stinging power ; for though I have handled not 

 only the commoner Actiniae, but also the larger and 

 less common Anthea, I never felt anything approaching 

 to stinging ; but I never touched a tentaculum without 

 perceiving the tip of it had some prehensile property 

 by which it took a slight hold of the skin of the finger, 

 causing a kind of rasping feeling when withdrawn. It 

 may be, however, that the fangs had not fair play with 

 my fingers, if somehow or other they are sting-proof."* 

 He then makes the following quotation from Mrs Pratt's 

 Chapters on the Common Things of the Sea-side, 

 which I reproduce as positive and direct testimony : 

 " It appears that different persons are variously affect- 

 ed even by touching the same Actinias. The author 

 had placed in a vessel of sea water a fine specimen of 

 the fig marygold sea-anemone, which she was accus- 

 tomed to touch many times during the day. The 

 tentacula closed immediately round the intruding finger, 

 producing only a slight tingling. Her surprise was 

 great at finding that the same anemone, on being 

 touched by another person, communicated a more 

 powerful sensation, which her friend assured her was 

 felt up the whole of the arm. More than twenty per- 

 sons touched this Anemone ; and the writer was 

 amused by observing how variously they were affected, 

 some being only slightly tingled, while others started 



* Popular History of British Zoophytes, p. 239. 



