82 MARCH. 



coarse warts, may be olive, or deep green, or purple- 

 crimson, or light green splashed and streaked with 

 scarlet like an apple ; the disk is equally varied, but 

 generally displays diverging bands of rich red which 

 fork and embrace the tentacles; while the tentacles, 

 short, stout, and conical, may be white with pellucid 

 rings, deep crimson, or of the highest flush of rose, with 

 a broad ring of lilac. Widely expanded, the Crassi- 

 cornis is as good a mimicry of the great dahlias of our 

 gardens, as the Sagartise are of the daisies and pompone 

 chrysanthemums. Even bees are occasionally deceived. 

 Mr. Couch, when once looking at a fine specimen which 

 was expanded so close to the surface that only a thin 

 film of water covered the disk and tentacles, saw a 

 roving bee alight on the tempting surface, evidently 

 mistaking the anemone for a veritable blossom; the 

 tenacious tentacles instantly seized it, and though it 

 struggled a good deal for its liberty, retained the dis- 

 appointed bee till it was drowned, when it was soon 

 consigned to the insatiable stomach. The story reminds 

 us of the well-known fact that the flesh-flies, deceived 

 by the carrion smell of some of the Stapeliae, some- 

 times lay their eggs on the flowers ; both cases showing 

 that animal instinct is not quite so unerring as it is 

 frequently represented. 



Attached to the thin crumpled leaf of an Ulva in 



