292 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



novelty there was only the Hydractinia (a pretty little 

 white polype growing in clusters on the outside of a 

 whelk shell, inside of which was a hermit-crab) and the 

 Actinia parasitica, hitherto only known to me through 

 pictures, but which I found transcending in beauty all 

 power of painting. This beautiful Anemone is ex- 

 tremely abundant here at low tide, but scarcely merits 

 its name of Parasitica, for I find it almost as frequently 

 on stones and on the sides of the rocks as on the whelk 

 shells ; and in captivity it quits its shell, roaming about 

 the pie-dish, and fixing itself to the side, or to seaweeds, 

 like any other Anemone. The extreme sensitiveness 

 of the Parasitica enhances its attractions ; it is for 

 ever expanding and retracting its tentacles, elongating, 

 curving, or retracting its stem : sometimes doubling its 

 length, at other times assuming an hour-glass constric- 

 tion in the middle. The filaments which contain the 

 " thread-capsules" are poured forth in great abundance 

 whenever the animal is disturbed. While on the sub- 

 ject of Jersey Anemones, it may be added that, besides 

 the ordinary species, I dredged what is probably a 

 variety of the Actinia ornata, described and beauti- 

 fully figured by Dr Strethill Wright in the Edinburgh 

 Pliilosojphical Journal for July 1856, — the body white, 

 the exterior circle of tentacles orange, the two interior 

 circles white striped with grey, the disc orange in the 

 centre ; very charming to behold. 



Having stocked my jars and dishes, I was somewhat 

 reluctant to broil in a noonday sun amid the rocks, 

 with little hope of finding any animal not already 



