HALF AN HOUR WITH SEA-ANEMONES. 123 



column is perforated with small holes, out of which 

 issue stinging threads, by means of which the sea- 

 anemones, harmless though they appear, can at once 

 stun and paralyze their prey. Mr. Gosse describes 

 this arrangement as follows: "The skin of the 

 body is pierced with minute holes, capable of being 

 opened and closed at will, out of which can be forced 

 curious slender threads, which lie coiled up in great 

 profusion in the interior of the animal. These 

 threads are almost entirely composed of those ex- 

 traordinary capsules called cnidas, or nettling cells, 

 found, indeed, in most of the tissues, but nowhere 

 in such abundance as here, which eject with amazing 

 force a poisonous filament haying the strength and 

 elasticity of a wire, and furnished with reversed 

 barbs, but of almost inconceivable tenuity. The 

 filaments, projected by myriads at the pleasure of 

 the animal, penetrate deeply into the flesh of other 

 soft-bodied creatures, and cause immediate paralysis 

 and sudden death." The Eev. J. GL Wood also 

 describes these remarkable organs, which again 

 remind us of the near relationship between the sea- 

 anemones and the jelly-fish, the latter, it will be 

 remembered, having this nettling power developed 

 in the tentacles. Mr. Wood says that the capsules 

 of the anemones are especially crowded on the 

 tentacles, as well as scattered over various parts of 

 the body. He tells us they " are little oval vescicles, 

 embedded in the substance of the anemone, and 

 containing within them a long delicate thread, 



