THE PLUMOSE ANEMONE. 749 



If a portion of a tentacle be examined under a moderately powerful microscope, it 

 will be seen to be studded with tiny cells, in each of which lies coiled a dark thread. 

 On applying pressure to the cell, it suddenly discharges the coiled thread, which proves 

 on a closer examination to be a long, wiry dart, often of wondrously complex structure, 

 and capable of penetrating into any soft substance with which it comes in contact. 

 Elaborate accounts and drawings of these cells and their contained weapons may be 

 found in Mr. Gosse's valuable " British Sea-Anemones and Corals," a work to which I 

 gladly refer my readers for many interesting details respecting the beautiful creatures 

 on which we are at present engaged. 



Though the human skin be a tougher and harder substance than the prey generally 

 brought into contact with the tentacles, it yet can feel the effects of the individually 

 minute but collectively potent weapons with which these delicate tentacles are armed. 

 A finger which is touched by a tentacle is instantly conscious of being seized, as it 

 were, and forced to adhere to the soft waving membrane which it could crush with a 

 single effort. On most persons this adherence has no particular effect ; but those who 

 possess delicate skins, and a sensitive nervous system, are much worried by blisters and 

 pustules occasioned by the assaults of these microscopical weapons. A young eel, 

 measuring six inches in length and half an inch in thickness, was killed in a few 

 minutes by mere contact with the tentacles, and in a very short time was tucked quietly 

 away in the creature's stomach. These weapons are most numerous at the tips of 

 the tentacles, just where they are most needed. 



IN the right-hand lower corner of the illustration maybe seen the SCOTTISH PEARLET, 

 a member of a genus once thought very rare in England, but now necessarily expanded 

 into a family, and found to contain a considerable number of species, even in our own 

 seas. Most of the Pearlets are able to crawl over solid bodies ; some inhabit tubes ; 

 others are found burrowing in the sand ; while nearly all are able to puff out the hinder 

 part of the column with water. 



Little is known respecting the history of the Scottish Pearlet, save that it is a very 

 rare species, and has only been found in deep water. All the tentacles are very 

 slender, and marked with a dark line. 



The PuFFLETsare so called because they possess the power of puffing out the hinder 

 part of the column until it assumes a somewhat globular shape. A British species of 

 this genus, the PAINTED PUFFLET (Edwardsia callimorpha), appears to be one of the 

 burrowers, its body being hidden beneath the sand, and the beautiful tentacles just 

 protruding from the surface. None of the Pufflets have many tentacles. 



WE may here briefly notice another example of the same family. 



The VESTLET is one of those members of the family which inhabit tubes. All of 

 them are remarkable from the fact that they possess no adherent base, but, as a com- 

 pensation for this deficiency, are furnished with an adherent power upon the stem, 

 enabling them to crawl freely over solid bodies. In this species, the tube is cylindrical, 

 and very wide in comparison with the dimensions of the inhabitant : it is of tough, 

 paper-like consistence, rather thick, and is composed of many layers of intertwining 

 fibres, mixed with sand and mud. The ordinary length of the animal is six or seven 

 inches, and the width of the flower-like plumes about an inch and a half. Mr. Gosse 

 found that he was able to remove the creature from its opaque dwelling, and place it 

 in a tube of glass, which the animal accepted as an useful substitute, without troubling 

 itself to reconstruct another house. 



THE beautiful creature which is shown in the centre of the next engraving, under 

 the name of PLUMOSE ANEMONE, is certainly the most magnificent of the known British 

 species. 



It may be at once recognized by its bold cylindrical stem, firm and sturdy as the 

 oak trunk, standing out bravely from the object to which it is affixed, and crowned with 

 its lovely tufted tentacles, fringed and cut like the petals of the pink. Its color is 

 extremely variable, being snowy white, olive, red, orange, cream, or pale pink ; and of all 



