HALF AN HOUR WITH SEA- ANEMONES. 119 



places visitors may be seen engaged in it every day. 

 We have already sketched forth, in our chapter on 

 " preparations," the necessary requirements for 

 anemone collecting, and will therefore now proceed 

 to describe those species which the student is most 

 likely to meet with, and whose habits are best 

 known. 



Before doing so, however, we feel sure that our 

 readers will have their interest in anemone collect- 

 ing and aquarium keeping enhanced if they know 

 something about the zoological characters of these 

 creatures as a class. This will be all the easier if 

 they have read our remarks on the corallines and 

 the jelly-fish. Sometimes the student finds the 

 class named Actinozoa, or " radiated animals," from 

 the peculiar radiating divisions of their interior. 

 At others they may be grouped as Zoantharia, a 

 word which is only the reverse of that under which 

 we first introduced them, and signifying the same 

 thing. Taking them altogether, we find on strict 

 examination that the sea-anemones, or Anthozoa, 

 differ from the members of the coralline and jelly- 

 fish family in having a distinct digestive sac, or 

 stomach, situated below the body-cavity. This is 

 separated from the outer or body wall by a space or 

 partition, which is divided into a series of vertical 

 compartments, like the chambers of a poppy-head. 

 These compartments are zoologically termed " me- 

 senteries," and their use seems to be very important 

 in the economy of the animal. It is to their walls 



