CHAPTER I. 



SUDDEN ENTHUSIASM FOB THE ANEMONES — IMPERFECT STATE OF OUR 

 KNOWLEDGE — LITERATURE OF THE SUBJECT— NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN 

 ANIMAL AND PLANT : SENSITIVENESS, LOCOMOTION, AND CAPTURE OF FOOD 

 — VORACITY OF THE ANEMONE — ITS PARALYSING POWER DENIED— HABITS 

 AND INSTINCTS — IS IT VIVIPAROUS ONLY ? —VARIATIONS OP COLOUR. 



Since the British mind was all alive and trenibliug with 

 that zoological fervour excited by the appearance of the 

 hippopotamus in Eegent's Park, no animal has touched 

 it to such fine issues and such exuberant enthusiasm as 

 the lovely Sea-Anemone, now the ornament of countless 

 drawing-rooms, studies, and back parlours, as well as the 

 delight of unnumbered amateurs. In glass tanks and ele- 

 gant vases of various device, in finger-glasses and common 

 tumblers, the lovely creature may be seen expanding its 

 coronal of tentacles, on mimic rocks, amid mimic forests of 

 algae, in mimic oceans — of pump-water and certain mixtures 

 of chlorides and carbonates, regidated by a " specific gravity 

 test." Fairy fingers minister to its wants, removing dirt 

 and slime from its body, feeding it with bits of limpet or raw 

 beef ; fingers, not of fairies, pull it about with the remorse- 

 less cmiosity of science, and experiment on it, according to 

 the suggestion of the moment. At once pet, ornament, and 

 " subject for dissection," the Sea- Anemone has a well estab- 

 lished popularity in the British family-circle; having the 



