Sea-anemones. 57 



nes are extremely voracious ; they are not content with feeding on the 

 pieces of meat given them, but also catch living worms, crab, snails and 

 fishes which, are often much larger than themselves. 



They move from one place to another very rarely and then very 

 slowly. If they are disturbed , they 7 contract themselves into such small 

 masses, forcing out the sea-water they have taken up, that they are al- 

 most unrecognisable. Their tenacity of life is extraordinary and enables 

 them to be kept easily in aquaria. In some cases one and the same in- 

 dividual has been kept alive for over 50 years in small aquaria. 

 Some Anemones are eaten by the poorer classes of Naples. 



Of the numerous kinds of Anemones many are richly coloured ; we 

 would mention especially the common Anemonia Slllcata (Fig. 50) 

 which grows in hundreds on the rocks, like flowers in a bed. Finer even 

 than this is one which has up to the present time only been found in the 

 Bay of Naples, the Alicia (Fig. 111). It lives at great depths and, being 

 of rare occurrence, is not always present in the Aquarium. When expan- 

 ded, i. e. when the body and tentacles are swollen out with sea-water, 

 this species is probably one of the finest. Adamsia (Fig. 136) is interesting 

 on account of its habit of sharing the possession of some whelk- or other 

 shell with a hermit-crab, by which it allows itself to be carried about 

 (tank 23, see p. 72). On the slightest contact it draws in its tentacles. 

 The orange-red Cereactis exhibits fine colouring (Fig. 51). Cerianthus 

 (Fig. 1H4) differs from the other Sea-anemones in not being fixed; it lives 

 in a loose covering which it makes deep in the saud, only a small por- 

 tion of its body projecting (tank 22). It is one of the largest Sea-anemo- 

 nes and reaches a length of 8 inches. One specimen in the Aquarium 

 has lived since 1882. 



CORALS. 



Proceeding from the Actiniae we can now more easily understand 

 the structure of the Corals. If the Anemones had the power to deposit 

 a calcareous covering on the outside of their body, or a similar skeleton 

 within their body-wall , these hard parts would, after the death of the 

 animal, be termed corals. The fine orange-coloured Coral . Astroides 

 (Fig. 52) , which lives on the rocks of tank No. 9, may be considered 

 as an Anemone provi led with such a calcareous framework. Spreading 

 out their rings of tentacles the numerous animals side by side present 

 the appearance of an orange-coloured carpet, but then their framework is 

 not visible. Only after the orange-coloured animal has died and decayed 

 away, the remaining grey calcareous skeleton or framework becomes vi- 

 sible: this can be seea in several parts of the tank, looking not unlike a 

 honeycomb. The coast of Italy is in many places covered with this coral. 

 Those who have made by boat the beautiful trip from Amalfi to Scaricatoio 

 will have had ample opportunity of seeing the orange belt it forms on 

 the rocks immediately below the water-line. Similar corals form the large 

 reels which are met with in the southern seas (even as far north as the 



