THE MARINE AQUARIUM. §9 
The Actiniade—so named from the Greek—signifying 
a ray of the sun—are an extensive family, of which more 
than a hundred species are to be found on our coasts, or 
in the deep bays adjacent. But few of these are suited 
for confinement in aquaria, and of these the chief are the 
Actinia proper, the Sagartia, most of which are usually 
grouped with the Actinia; the Anthea Cereus; the 
splendid Adamsia Palliata, which is the only known 
species of the genus to which it belongs ; and a few of the 
Bunodes, Edwardsia, and Corynactis. 
Tn all the varieties of sea anemones the mode of life is 
similar ; they are carnivorous, and obtain their prey by 
means of the ever-seeking tentacles that search the lymph 
around them, and secure sometimes fishes, at others 
mollusks, but more frequently the minute forms of infu- 
sorial life that abound in the sea, or in the artificial 
water of the tank. The mode of reproduction is by ova, 
which are sometimes vivified in the body of the parent, 
and not only do they give birth by ejection from the 
mouth of a numerous progeny, but actual divisions of the 
body may be made, and each division will acquire com- 
pleteness. Dr. Johnson relates several instances in proof 
of this, one of which is particularly interesting. A spe- 
cimen of Actinia crassicornis had swallowed a large, sharp- 
edged shell, which so completely stretched the body of 
the creature as if on a ring of wire, as virtually to cut it 
into two equal parts. Thereupon it put out from the 
base a new disk, with mouth and tentacles, and became . 
at once a double anemone, to which the gorged shell 
served as an intermediate base of attachment. Dr. Cocks 
