THE SHORES OF BRITAIN. 69 



dilates greatly, and soon embraces the victim, which 

 is gradually but rapidly sucked down into the stomach, 

 and the lip closes over it. In the course of a period 

 varying from six hours to two or three days, the 

 morsel is returned by the same orifice, more or less 

 decomposed and digested. 



]\Iost of the species are capable of very long fasts, 

 although voracious enough when food is to be ob- 

 tained. Dr. Johnston tells us of a specimen once 

 brought to him, " that might have been originally two 

 inches in diameter, and that had somehow contrived 

 to swallow a valve of the great Scallop {PecUn 

 maximiis), of the size of an ordinary saucer. The 

 shell, fixed within the stomach, was so placed as to 

 divide it completely into two halves, so that the body 

 stretched tensely over, had become thin and flattened 

 like a pancake. All communication between the in- 

 ferior portion of the stomach and the mouth was of 

 course prervTnted ; yet, instead of emaciating and 

 dying of atrophy, the animal had availed itself of what 

 undoubtedly had been a very untoward accident, to 

 increase its enjoyments and its chances of double 

 fare. A new mouth, furnished with two rows of nu- 

 merous tentacles, was opened upon what had been the 

 base, and led to the under-stomach : the individual had 

 indeed become a sort of Siamese twin, but with 

 greater intimacy and extent in its unions ! " * 



Some fifty or sixty species of Sea-anemones 

 exist on our shores, many of which are exquisitely 

 beautiful. Some are rare or local ; others are gene- 

 rally distributed and are very common. The south- 

 * Brit. Zooph. Ed. i., p. 224. 



