514 POLYPI. 



ACTINIA, Lin. 



The fleshy body of these Polypi is frequently ornamented with bright 

 colours, and exhibits numerous tentacula placed round the mouth in seve- 

 ral ranges, like the petals of a double flower, and hence their common 

 name of Sea- Anemones. They are extremely sensible to the influence of 

 light, and expand or close in proportion to the fineness of the day. 

 When they retract their tentacula, the opening- through which those organs 

 pass contracts and closes over them like the mouth of a purse . 



Their power of reproduction is scarcely inferior to that of the Hydra; 

 parts that have been amputated shoot out again, and the animal may be 

 multiplied by division. These Zoophytes, when hungry, dilate their mouth 

 to a great extent. They devour all sorts of animals, especially Crus- 

 tacea, Shell-fish, and small Fishes, which they capture with their tentacula, 

 and soon digest. 



JL. equina, L. The skin soft and finely striated, usually of a fine purple 

 colour frequently spotted with green; it is smaller than the senilis, with 

 longer and more numerous tentacula. This species covers all the rocks on 

 the French coast of the British channel, ornamenting them as if with the 

 most splendid flowers. 



LUCERNARIA, Mull. 



The Lucernariae should apparently be approximated to the Actinia, but 

 their substance is softer; they fix themselves to fuci and other marine 

 bodies by a slender pedicle, and their superior portion dilates like a parasol, 

 in the centre of which is the mouth. Numerous tentacula united in bundles 

 are arranged round its edges. 



ORDER II. 

 GELATINOSI. 



The gelatinous Polypi, unlike^the preceding ones, are not invested 

 with a firm envelope, neither is there a ligneous, fleshy, nor corne- 

 ous axis in the interior of their mass. Their body is gelatinous and 

 more of less conical; its cavity supplies the want of a stomach. 



HYDRA, Lin. 



Of all the animals of this class, these are reduced to the greatest degree of 

 simplicity. A little gelatinous horn, whose edges are provided with fila- 

 ments that act as tentacvla, constitutes their whole apparent organization. 

 The microscope discovers nothing in their substance but a diaphanous 

 parenchyma filled with more opaque granules. Notwithstanding this, they 



