THE DAHLIA WARTLET. 
215 
Shore-crab ( Carcinus) is its ordinary prey, but it feeds on 
limpets, and other MoUusca. Dr. Johnston tells of one 
that had swallowed a valve of the Great Scallop, and of 
the strange result;* Dr. E. P. Wright had one which 
discharged as the remains of his evening’s meal, “ a mode- 
rate sized Fusus, and a mass of Nereids and Shrimps, that 
exhaled such a fearful smell as killed all my tank-full ; ” 
and one in Mr. F. II. West’s possession actually made 
a bonne houclie of an Echinus miliarts, as large as a shilling, 
making no bones of the spines. Two days afterwards 
the shell of the Urchin was disgorged, perfectly empty, 
denuded of its spines, the oral plates crnshed in, and partly 
wanting. The common Blenny and other fishes frequently 
fall victims to the rapacity of this gourmand, which spares 
not its own kindred. 
The tentacles are very adhesive, as is sufficiently mani- 
fest to our fingers, when we touch them ; and contact with 
these organs is amply sufficient to resist the most vigorous 
attempts to escape of the animals above-mentioned. 
Beautiful as is the Dahlia, it is not a very frequent 
tenant of our aquariums ; as it is one of the most difficult 
to keep. I have, however, kept specimens for four and 
five months; and Mr. West still longer; for the epicure 
whose urchin-diet is recorded above, had been then nine 
months in captivity. It appears to be little able to sustain 
extremes of temperature. The heat of summer is generally 
fatal to our captive specimens ; and a severe winter makes 
havoc among those which are in the enjoyment of freedom. 
After the intense and protracted frost of February, 1855, 
the shores of South Devon were strewn with dead and 
dying Anemones, principally of this species, which were 
rolled helplessly on the beach, their bodies almost concealed 
by the protruding craspeda. This symptom is almost the 
* Brit. Zoopb. i. 235. 
