NATURAL HISTORY OF OUR SHORES 



The column is long, and has power of elongation and 

 retraction, no doubt to meet the varying depth of sand 

 which covers the small stone or shell to which the foot is 

 always attached. 



Again, in sand, but where this is loose and shelly, there 

 are two peculiar anemones. They are not common, but 

 occur in many localities. The principal one is Peachia 

 hastata. It is about four inches long in the column, and 

 the disc and expanded tentacles about one inch across. 

 The tentacles are few, only twelve, and they are stout and 

 tapered. The colour is pale pinkish brown, the tentacles 

 being cross-banded with white. It does not attach itself 

 to any object, but lives, wormlike, in the sand, from the 

 surface of which, when the tide covers it, it expands its 

 tentacles. Instead of a flat base to its column, as have 

 other anemones, it terminates in a bluntly tapered point. 



Cerianthus is a closely related form, and found in the 

 same localities. This one is still more wormlike in form, 

 being about four inches long, and not much stouter than a 

 pencil. Its colour is creamy white. Both these are rather 

 rare, and they are difficult to find, except to the experienced 

 collector, for when the tide is out the only indication of 

 their presence is a little hole, as if made with the end of a 

 walking-stick, in the sand. 



The last anemone I shall mention is the grand " Plumose 

 anemone " (Dianthus plumosa). It is fairly common, 

 although not very generally diffused. It is of large size, 

 the column four or five inches high by an inch and a half 

 in diameter. The tentacles, which look like a bunch of 

 well-curled ostrich feathers (hence " plumosa "), form a 

 dense tuft, which in well-developed specimens is three or 

 four inches in diameter. The coloration is uniform white, 

 buff, or a delicate saffron. In some situations it abounds. 

 At the foot of the piles of the pier at Southend-on-Sea I 

 have seen it in immense clusters, and the uninviting masses 



