202 AUGUST. 



accident befell one lately, which I had kept in my tank 

 for about two months. This individual, about two 

 and a half inches long, active and healthy, made a 

 backward spring, and came in contact with the tentacles 

 of an Anthea cereus, which in an instant enveloped its 

 hinder half, clinging round and over it and quite cover- 

 ing that portion. I was looking on, and after a moment's 

 glance to see that the fish was perfectly helpless, I 

 removed it with a stick, so that it was free in about 

 half a minute from its accident. But the effect was 

 manifest ; it swam away indeed, but irregularly and 

 fitfully, and presently sank down on the bottom ; lay 

 awhile, then struggled up for a few seconds, swimming 

 on one side, as if partly paralysed, and frequently 

 turning over belly-up ; then sinking obliquely down 

 and hiding its nose between the stones. The fins were 

 white and ragged, and the skin of the hinder part was 

 ruffled up in parts, and the entire hind-half looked 

 diseased. By night it was not to be seen ; but the 

 next morning I found it, dead and stiff, and with the 

 whole of the parts that had been embraced by the 

 Anthea turned of a pellucid white, the edges of the fins 

 sloughed away and decomposing. 



.When we consider that the entire period of contact 

 was no more than half a minute, the power of the subtle 

 poison, injected by the cnidce of the Opelet, becomes 



