150 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



to theory, the thread should dart out ahnost instantaneously 

 on the slightest pressure ; in point of fact it frequently can- 

 not be pressed out at all, even when the whole force of the 

 finger is exerted on the two pieces of glass between which 

 it lies. From the very capricious %\-ay in wliich the threads 

 dart out while under the microscope, and not under pressure, 

 and from the frequent impossibility of pressing them out, I 

 suspect that pressure has really nothing normally to do with 

 the ejection of the thread. 



Hitherto we have merely considered facts of Observation ; 

 we shall now see them confirmed by Experiment. Mr Gosse 

 proposes to establish a new genus, named Sagartia, on this 

 purely hypothetical function ; including in it all those 

 Anemones which, like the Daisy and Dianthus, possess an 

 abmidance of peculiar white filaments, visible to the naked 

 eye, which are protruded from the pores of the body and the 

 mouth, when the animal is roughly handled. These fila- 

 ments are seen, on examination, to be chiefly composed of 

 the " urticating cells." Mr Gosse names the genus Sagartia, 

 because Herodotus says of the Sagartians, that " when they 

 engage with the enemy they throw out ropes which have 

 nooses at the end, and whatever any one catches he drags 

 towards himself, and they that are entangled in the coils are 

 put to death." The name, you perceive, is aptly chosen, — 

 that is, it would be, if the hypothesis of the filaments were 

 not a figment. The filaments have no such lasso-like and 

 murderous power. This Mr Gosse would deny ; and I 

 remember he somewhere records an observation which would 

 perhaps quite satisfy him that his denial has good ground to 



