Chap, xvi.] LARGE CERIANTHUS. 



353 



_ These muddy expanses are the haunt of numerous shore 

 birds. In the pools a large Sea-Anemone, of the genus 

 Ceriatithus, expands its tentacles in the full blaze of the sun. 

 Ceria?ithiis is a form which uses its " thread cells," which in 

 all its widely varying allies are apparently only employed as 

 offensive stinging organs, to construct a dwelling. The cells 

 are shed out in enormous abundance, and with their protruded 

 filaments matted together, form a tough leathery tube with a 

 smooth and glistening inner surfoce, which is buried upright in 

 the mud. 



Within this tube the Anemone lives, expanding its tentacles 

 at the mouth of the tube, on a level with the surface of the 

 mud. It has the power of moving itself with extreme rapidity 

 down its tube, and disappears like a flash when alarmed. The 

 species at Mactan Island is very large. The tube measures 

 one foot four inches in length, and is very thick and heavy 

 though made up almost entirely of thread cells. The animal 

 itself is six inches in length. 



This species of Ceriant/ms lives in shallow water in the full 

 heat and glare of the sun ; yet another species, Cerianthus 

 bathynietricHS* differing from it in hardly any particular, except 

 that it is of much smaller size, inhabits the deep sea at a depth 

 of three miles, in almost absolute or entire darkness, at a 

 temperature near freezing point, and where the water is at a 

 pressure of, roughly, three tons to the square inch. 



Camiguin Island, January 26th, 1875. — Camiguin Island 

 lies about 8o miles to the eastward of Cebu Island. " In July 

 187 1 a volcanic eruption of two months' duration took place in 

 the island, and threw up a hill two-thirds of a mile long and 

 450 feet in height, destroying the surrounding vegetation and 

 village of Catarman."t A visit was paid to the island in order 

 to see this volcano. 



The volcano, a dome-shaped mass standing on the sea-shore, 

 was still red and glowing in cracks at the summit, and smoke 

 was ascending from it. There appeared to be no crater, and 

 Mr. Buchanan, with whom I landed, drew my attention to the 

 fact that the lava of which it was composed w^as entirely 

 trachytic. It recalled in form at once, some of the smaller 

 trachytic domes of the Fuy de Dome district, in the Auvergne, 

 concerning the mode of formation of which there has been 

 much doubt. 



* H. N. Moseley, "On New Forms of Actiniaria dredged in the Deep 

 Sea."— Trans. Linn. Soc, 2nd Sen, Vol. I., p. 302. ,, ,^ ^ ,^, 



t "Information received from Francis G. Gray, of H.M.S. Nassau, 

 Navigating Lieut." Hydrographic Notice, No. 8, 1872. Eyre & Spottis- 

 vvoode. 



2\ 



