256 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



Anemones liave highly susceptible souls, as liable to emo- 

 tions of alarm as a fine lady. When they are in undisturbed 

 quiescence in pool or tank, the same ejection of the water 

 takes place, only with less rapidity. Their normal condition 

 is that of constantly sucking in and pouring out sea- water, 

 for on this mainly depends their nutrition. Keep one in a 

 vase, without feeding it, without even suffering visible food 

 to float in the water, and it will nevertheless feed and flourish 

 simply by this absorption of water, which contains gases and 

 invisible organic particles. 



I had three Daisies in a vase for nine weeks, during which 

 time they were entirely without food, except such as the 

 water held in solution. They were as healthy and active all 

 the time as any others, and I believed they would have con- 

 tinued so to the end of the chapter. The experiment is 

 worth trying. 



Tar as this is from the notions current respecting the 

 nutrition of Anemones, it is easily demonstrable. In the 

 preceding Chapter I showed that the supposed " diges- 

 tion " of the Anemone was confined to the juessing out of 

 the juices, and the rendering soluble, by maceration, of 

 organic substance ; I have now to show that this animal is 

 not only without " blood," in any proper sense of the term, 

 but also without that simpler form of blood named " chyl- 

 aqueous fluid " liy Dr Williams and succeeding writers. 



This will probably startle the reader, especially if he 

 happen to have seen the writings of Dr Williams, who actu- 

 ally figures the chyle-corpuscles of the Actinise, and declares 



