64 



Part second. 



ejecting forcibly the long filament; this bears a sharp point and is 

 often barbed, while the noxious liquid in its core renders the tiny 

 wound it makes sufficiently poisonous to benumb or even kill. 

 The ejection of these minute weapons may be compared to blow- 

 ing out the fingers of a glove when these are tucked in. 



The Anemones are extremely voracious; they are not content 

 with feeding on the pieces of meat given them, but also catch 

 living worms, crabs, snails and fishes which are often much larger 

 than themselves. 



They move from one place to another very rarely and then very 

 slowly. If they are disturbed, they contract themselves into such 

 small masses, forcing out the sea-water they have taken up, that 

 they are almost unrecognisable. Their tenacity of life is extra- 

 ordinary and enables them to be kept easily in aquaria. In some 

 cases one and the same individual has been kept alive for over 

 50 years in small aquaria. — Some Anemones are eaten by the 

 poorer classes of Naples. 



Of the numerous kinds of Anemones many are richly coloured ; 

 we would mention especially the common Opelet (Anemonia 

 sulcata, fig. 49, "Ardichella") which grows in hundreds on the 

 rocks, like flowers in a bed. Finer even than this is one which 

 has up to the present time only been found in the Bay of Naples, 

 the Alicia (Fig. no). It lives at great depths and being of rare 

 occurence is not always present in the Aquarium. The cloak 

 Anemone (Adamsia, fig. 143) is interesting on account of its habit 

 of sharing the possession of some whelk- or other shell with a hermit- 

 crab, by which it allows itself to be carried about (tank 23, see 

 p. 83). On the slightest contact it draws in its tentacles. The 

 Orange-red Cereactis exhibits fine colouring (fig. 53). A small 

 species, Heliactis, often settles in large numbers on the walls on 

 the south side tanks, especially Nr. i. 



Cerianthus differs from the other Sea-anemones in not being 

 fixed ; it lives in a loose covering which it makes deep in the sand, 

 only a small portion of its body projecting (tank 22). A green 

 specimen of Cerianthus has lived in this tank since 1882; at that 

 time its body was 1^/2 inches long and 2^/2 thick, now its length 

 and breadth are 10 times as much and the crown of outstretched 

 tentacles has a diameter of 10 inches. 



