III. 



No marine objects have become more universally 

 popular of late years than Sea Anemones. Certainly 

 none better deserve the attention which has been, 

 and is daily bestowed upon them by thousands of 

 amateur naturalists, who cannot but be delighted 

 with the wondrous variety of form, and the 

 beauteous colouring which these zoophytes possess. 



A stranger could scarcely believe, on looking into 

 an aquarium, that the lovely object before him, seated 

 motionless at the base of the vessel, with tentacula 

 expanded in all directions, was not a simple daisy 

 newly plucked from the mountain side, or it may be 

 a blooming marigold or Anemone from some rich 

 parterre instead of being, in reality, a living, moving, 

 animal-flower. 



One great advantage which the Actinice possess 

 over certain other inhabitants of the sea shore, at 

 least to the eye of the naturalist, is the facility with 

 which specimens may be procured for observation 

 and study. Scarcely any rock -pool near low water 



