7O BY THE DEEP SEA. 



There is another species, nearly allied, that has white 

 tentacles with grey tips, but the disk is of a dull, orange tint, 

 with a dusky border at the roots of the tentacles. This is the 

 Orange-disk Anemone (Sagartia venustd), a species that likes 

 to hide its brown column in a hole or a crevice of some over- 

 hanging rock or in a cavern. It is very local. 



S\ venusta is very shy, and readily folds in her tentacles 

 in truth, she seldom opens them very widely. 6\ rosea, on 

 the other hand, will fully display her charms immediately after 

 she has been transferred to an artificial home. S. venusta is 

 but little inclined to rove about an aquarium, but whenever 

 she does so she appears bound to leave a portion of her base 

 behind her. In the course of about ten days this detached 

 portion develops tentacles, and sets up an independent 

 existence. 



There is a group of which the members are invisible unless 

 their tentacles are expanded, and even then they harmonise 

 so well with their surroundings that they are seen only with 

 difficulty. Of course, when the eye has got accustomed to 

 their forms and colours, and knows what to look for, it finds 

 them, if they are present. 



I have shown a small rock-basin to a friend whose eye is 

 pretty keen where natural objects are concerned, but he has 

 utterly failed to see the crowd of Anemones in full expansion 

 that were there, until several had been almost touched by my 

 finger in pointing them out; then a minute or two later he 

 was finding out the others that were there, without any assist- 

 ance from me. One of the species concerned was 



The Cave-dweller (Cylista undata), which is exceedingly 

 liable to variation in form and colour. It is difficult to obtain, 

 owing to its awkward habit of fixing its base in some narrow 

 chink of the rock, and spreading out its broad disk above the 

 crevice. Unless one is very careful in excavating the troglo- 

 dyte, one may cut it in two, or hopelessly smash it. The 

 column is of a dirty-looking drab colour, shading off into grey 



