THE DAISY ANEMONE. 31 



marked, and at the same time constant, specific character, 

 there is scarcely any of our species more readily or more 

 certainly recognisable. Its variations are circumscribed' 

 within appreciable limits, both of colour and form, and it 

 has little tendency to merge into the characteristic con- 

 dition of any other (British) species. Indeed, but ^for the 

 needless multiplication of genera, I should be tempted to 

 separate it from the other Sagartice, constituting for it, in 

 association with two or three closely allied forms from the 

 southern hemisphere, a distinct genus. 



From the elegance of its form, and its ready power of 

 accommodating itself to captivity, few of our native species 

 are more favourite tenants of an aquarium than this. Its 

 habits, too, render it easily accessible. Within the limited 

 range of its habitat it is for the most part "abundant. The 

 rugged, indented, rocky shores of Devon and Cornwall 

 seem to be the metropolis of the species : and here the 

 tide-pools, fissures, and honeycomb-like burrows of the 

 Saxicavce, are densely crowded with the pretty Daisy. 



The broad front of Capstone Hill, at Ilfracombe, is 

 broken, within the range of the tides, into a succession of 

 narrow horizontal shelves, the angles of which run down 

 into long fissures. The limestone promontory, known as 

 Petit Tor, on the south-east coast of Devon, presents many 

 ledges very similar in character, but more eroded into irre- 

 gular holes and cavities. In both of these localities, hellts 

 abounds, generally of the beautiful scarlet-lined variety, 

 Tyriensis. Each usually occupies a little hollow, being 

 attached by its base to the bottom, and expanding its 

 beautiful disk over the edge. In the broader basins, 

 moreover, which the waves have worn, 



" hollows of the tide-worn reef," 



overshadowed by ribbon-shaped sea-weeds, — which are the 

 very counterparts, in the sea, of the hart's-tongue fern 



