G2 
SAGAETIADiE. 
troglodyte habit, it is, like many of its congeners, rather 
difficult to procure, notwithstanding its abundance, as it 
must be chiselled out, — an operation, which, from the great 
hardness of the compact limestone, is both tedious and 
precarious. 
Hundreds might be seen " in the largest of the caverns 
just alluded to, hanging down from the w^alls during the 
recess of the tide ; the button elongated to an inch or more. 
And almost every dark overarched basin hollowed in the 
sides of the caves, or in similar situations, at Lidstep, at 
St. Margaret’s Island, and under Tenby Head, each filled 
to the brim with still crystalline water, had its rugged walls 
and floor studded with the full-blown blossoms of this 
and cognate species. 
As a specimen of the exceeding richness of these “ gar- 
dens of the Nereids,” wherewith our iron-bound coasts are 
adorned, I shall take the liberty of citing the description of 
one, as it appeared to myself in the vicinity of which I 
am speaking. It was on the face of the bluff castle- 
crowned promontory known as Tenby Head. 
“ After scrambling over many rough ridges, we come to 
a perpendicular wall of rock some twenty-five feet high, 
jutting out from the cliff right across our way ; its foot 
washed by the sea, wdiich is evidently of considerable 
depth, its summit tapered to a sharp edge, and the whole 
side holed, and furrowed, and honeycombed, and covered 
with barnacles to the very top. 
* I use the past tense ; for alas ! it is so no more. When I revisited 
Tenby in 1856, I found that these caves, and almost every accessible part 
of the neighbouring coast, -were pretty well denuded of the lovely animal- 
flowers, which, in 1854, had blossomed there, as in a parterre. I fear that 
the hammers and chisels of amateur naturalists have been the desolating 
agents ; and my friends tell me, not without a semi-earnest reproachful- 
ness, that I am myself not guiltless of bringing about the consummation. 
If the visitors were gainers to the same .amount as the rocks are losers, 
there would be less cause for regret ; but owing to difficulty and unskilful- 
ness combined, probably half a dozen Anemones .are destroyed for one that 
goes into the aquarium. 
