DEFENCE OF CERTAIN SPECIES. 57 



moderate-sized specimens, when kept in companion- 

 ship with a mixed assembly of crustaceans. Yet in 

 no single instance have I witnessed a small crab 

 sacrificed to the gluttony of a small anemone. 



With regard to A. mesembryanthemum, A. bellis, 

 and A. dianthus, they get so accustomed to the 

 presence of their crusty neighbours, as not to retract 

 their expanded tentacula when a hermit crab, for 

 instance, drags his lumbering mansion across, or a 

 fiddler crab steps through the delicate rays, like a 

 sky terrier prancing over a bed of tulips. 



Thus much I have felt myself called upon to say 

 in defence of certain species of Actiniae ; but with 

 regard to A. crassicornis, I must candidly own the 

 creature is greedy and voracious to an extreme 

 degree. 



Like many other writers, I have seen scores of 

 this species of Actiniae that contained the remains of 

 crabs of large dimensions, but at one time considered 

 that the latter were dead specimens, which had 

 been drifted by the tide within reach of the Actinias, 

 and afterwards consumed. That such, indeed, was the 

 correct explanation in many instances I can scarcely 

 doubt, from the disproportionate bigness of the crabs 

 as compared with the anemones, but feel quite con- 

 fident, that in other instances, the Crustacea were 

 alive when first caught by their voracious com- 

 panions. 



To test the power of the ' crass./ I have fre- 



