Io6 NATURE STUDY. 



but whether she did mate again, I do not know. At 

 last accounts, those beautiful blue eggs still reposed in their 

 dismantled, and swaying nest. 



Sea Flowers as Pets. 



The queerest pets in the world are kept in a beautiful 

 row of clear, flashing, round glass tanks on an upper floor 

 of a large aquarium. As you approach the tanks you be- 

 hold glowing little groups of color and artistic blending 

 and mingling of fantastic weeds and shining stones. Then 

 when you peer into the tanks you see what at first seem 

 to you just like particularly handsome and gorgeous flow- 

 ers growing all over the little rockeries. Some of the 

 flowers look like dainty pink and white and yellow and 

 purple and ciimson dahlias. Others look almost like dai- 

 sies, with lacelike petals. Others look like little star flow- 

 ers, all pure white and perfect. These flowers are of all 

 sizes, from tiny ones barely large enough to see, to great 

 ones almost large enough to fill a saucer. 



But if you will watch these " flowers " for a few minutes 

 you will jump suddenly, for all at once you will see one 

 move its petals. Then you will see another and another 

 do it. Slowly the petals unfold or contract, with little 

 jerking movements, sometimes twining in the water like 

 snakes. 



Tap smartly on the table on which the tanks stand, and 

 like lightning all the petals will have disappeared. These 

 sea flowers are really not flowers at all. They are living 

 creatures, known as sea anemones. 



For many years a scientist has tended and fed them, and 

 the little animated flowers actually have come to know 

 him. When he feeds them, he puts a little bit of fish on 

 the end of a long pointed stick and puts it carefully down 

 into the water until it is near the anemone. It did not 



