BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



of a rolling field all aglow with a dense crop of 

 tansy in full bloom, and the moment I planted 

 the anemone in an aquarium of sand, things 

 beautiful began to happen. 



Balanced on its contracted base, it gradually 

 commenced to flatten and to grip the bottom with 

 long, bulbous furrows. The summit opened slowly 

 like the delayed motion picture of an expandmg 

 flower. Structure after structure came into view, 

 none showing the brilliancy of those blossoming 

 on the coral reef a hundred yards from shore, but 

 very beautiful with the exquisitely subdued pat- 

 terning of hen pheasants. First there uncurled 

 a broad Elizabethan ruff of clove brown, revolving 

 outward in an expanse of surface like lace spread 

 over a ploughed field. Then, like rabbits and 

 bouquets from a conjurer's hat, from no space at 

 all, rose up rank after rank of long finger tentacles, 

 until forty-eight were numbered. These were 

 thick at the base, and pale misty olive with scars 

 of whitish scattered down the inner side. Within 

 the three circles of the ever-moving tentacles was a 

 flat field of olive, marbled with reddish brown, 

 guarding in its center the half -opened mouth, with 

 still concealed, inner organs showing as four pearly 

 spheres. 



The first two anemones which I excavated had 

 columns of pale pink, the exact shade of the bark 

 of the submerged mangrove roots, but even the 

 most violent protective colorite could derive no 

 support from this pigmental by-product, for in 



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