THE MOllTE STONE. 79 



At Ilfracombe the oraiige-tenacled and orange-disked Ane- 

 mones, by Mr Goss christened Actinia aurora and Actinia 

 venusta, are unknown, and, of course, prized all the more on 

 that account. Is not everything valued for its rarity ? There 

 is, however, not many miles from Ilfracombe, a terrible reef 

 running far out into the sea, bearing the sombre name of the 

 Morte Stone, on which many a tall ship has been wrecked, 

 and which, inaccessible from the land, is visited only by 

 naturalists and gulls. We — I mean the naturalists, not the 

 gulls — found Morte Stone well worth the visit ; and while 

 scrambling over its desolate ridges, the spray of a heavy sea 

 dashing from either side in our faces, and a noonday sun 

 pouring down its fierce passion upon our heads, as we clam- 

 bered over rocks so black with mussels that you could not 

 for yards have inserted a penknife between them, A., with 

 his coat off, emerged from under a ledge, meeting B., no less 

 jubilant, both holding up specimens of the orange-tentacled 

 Anemone, hitherto supposed to belong exclusively to Tenby. 

 This was the first time I saw the sunset-flame on the tentacles 

 of this Anemone ; and when at Tenby, remembering the de- 

 light with which B. carried home the novelty, it w^as natural 

 that I should wish to send him a few of the beauties expand- 

 ing their tentacles in my vases. But how ? One cannot wrap 

 a moist and mucose animal in note-paper, and expect it to 

 reach its destination like an invitation for dinner, or the 

 request for a " trifling loan ; '' and the damp sea-weed which 

 will keep the animal alive, requires some covering to keep it- 

 self damp. I tried a card-board box, well padded with weed, 

 wrapped it in paper, and committed it to tlie tenderness of a 



