SEA- ANEMONES. 123 



The polyps of the madrepores resemble flowers when their upper disc is expanded and their- 

 feelers are out in the water. When contracted, they are concealed from sight in the calcareous 

 cells, which have grown with themselves, and form part of the madrepora. These beautiful 

 and curious natural productions assume many distinct forms. Some of them are arborescent, 

 as in Stylaster fabelliformis, which puts forth a perfect forest of trunks and branches. 

 Others are star-like in shape; many are more or less cylindrical and oval, as in the well- 

 known " Brain coral " (Meant! rina cerelriformis) . Another genus is entitled Fnngia, from 

 a supposed resemblance to the mushroom, there being this difference between terrestrial and 

 marine mushrooms that the former have leaflets below, and the latter have them above, 

 One of the most pleasing forms is found in the Plantain Madrepore, where the polyps ale- 

 arranged in tufts. , 



The Sea-anemones (Actwidce) will be now, thanks to the popularity of the aquarium, 

 tolerably familiar to most readers. Although undoubtedly animal, they much more resemble 

 flowers. They are to be found of the most brilliant colours and graceful forms. 



The body of the Sea-anemone is "cylindrical in form, terminating beneath in a muscular 

 disc, which is generally large and distinct, enabling them to cling vigorously to foreign 

 bodies. It terminates above in an upper disc, bearing many rows of tentacles, which differ 

 from each other only in their size. These tentacles are sometimes decorated with brilliant 

 colours, forming a species of collar, consisting of contractile and sometimes retractile tubes> 

 pierced at their points with an orifice, whence issue jets of water, which are ejected at the- 

 will of the animal. Arranged in circles, they are distributed with perfect regularity round 

 a central mouth. These are their arms." The stomach of the sea-anemone is both the seat 

 of digestion and of reproduction. The young are actually ejected from the mouth with the 

 rejecta of their food. " The daisy-like anemones in the Zoological Gardens of Paris/* 

 Fredol tells us, " frequently throw up young ones, which are dispersed, and attach themselves- 

 to various parts of the aquarium, and finally become miniature anemones exactly like the- 

 parent. An actinia, which had taken a very copious repast, ejected a portion of it about 

 twenty-four hours later, and in the middle of the ejected food were found thirty-eight young 

 individuals/' According to one author, an accouchement is here a fit of indigestion ! Sea- 

 anemones may be mutilated, cut limb from limb, or torn to pieces, and each piece will 

 become a new anemone in the end. "They adhere/' says Dr. Johnson, " to rocks, shells, 

 and other extraneous bodies by means of a glutinous secretion from their enlarged base, but 

 they can leave their hold and remove to another station whensoever it pleases them, either 

 by gliding along with a slow and almost imperceptible movement (half an inch in five 

 minutes), as is their usual method, or by reversing the body and using the tentacula for the 

 purpose of feet, as Reaumur asserts, and as I have once witnessed ; or, lastly, inflating the 

 body with water, so as to render it more buoyant, they detach themselves, and are driven 

 to a distance by the random motion of the waves. They feed on shrimps, small crabs, 

 whelks, and on very many species of shelled mollusca, and probably on all animals brought 

 within their reach Avhose strength or agility is insufficient to extricate them from the- 

 gvasp of their numerous tentacula. . . . The size of the prey is frequently in un- 

 seemly disproportion to the preyer, being often equal in bulk to itself. I had once brought 

 me a specimen of Actinia crassicornis that might have been originally two inches in diameter,. 



