128 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



the rescue, and found a large beetle struggling in the 

 clutches of a areen Anthea not much larger than himself 

 " The beetle is the victim," I quietly told Sixteen, who, not 

 having profound sympathies with beetles, was pacified as 

 she saw the struggling insect slowly passing into the 

 stomach of the Anthea, his struggles growing fainter and 

 fainter, and finally ceasing altogether, till at last we saw him 

 with head and thorax engulfed in the ravenous maw, his 

 abdomen sticking up in the air. 



A question of great interest and some intricacy here pre- 

 sents itself : Was the beetle paralysed by some peculiar 

 poison secreted from the tentacles of the Anemone ? — a 

 question which opens into this wider one : Have the 

 Polypes the mysterious power, almost universally attri- 

 buted to them, of paralysing with a touch the victims 

 they may grasp, so that, should the victim escape from the 

 grasp, it is only to die presently from the fatal touch ? The 

 power of fascination possessed by some animals, of poisoning 

 possessed by others, of electrical discharges possessed by 

 others, naturally lead men to interpret certain observations 

 made on the Polypes, as proofs that they, too, possess some 

 such power : and this suggestion gains a more ready credence 

 from the tendency in most minds to welcome every unex- 

 plained i)lienomenon as indicating an occult cause. This 

 witch-like power of fascination, — this power of paralysing 

 with a toucli, appeals to our imagination, and gains easy 

 access to belief But the sjiirit of scientific scepticism forces 

 me to declare that, as far as my observations and experi- 

 ments extend, there is nothing like evidence in favour of 



