SEA-ANEMONES: THEIR WEAPONS 401 



aeteristic of the two great classes of animals we have been 

 recently considering; viz., the Medusae and the Zoophytes. 

 They have repeatedly fallen under our observation in ex- 

 amining the specimens of these creatures which we had 

 selected, but I had reserved the fuller elucidation of them 

 for an occasion in which they should come before us under 

 circumstances of such unusual development as greatly to 

 facilitate our researches. The weapons I speak of are the 

 cnidce or nettling-cells. 



Look at this beautiful Scarlet-fringed Anemone (Sagarta 

 miniata), expanding to the utmost its disk and tentacles in 

 the clear water of the tank. I touch its body; instantly 

 the blossom-like display is withdrawn; the column closing 

 over it in the form of a hemispherical button, which goes 

 on contracting spasmodically. At the same time see these 

 white threads which shoot out from various points of the 

 surface; new ones appearing at every fresh contraction, 

 and streaming out to a length of several inches resem- 

 bling in appearance fine sewing cotton, twisted and tangled 

 irregularly. 



Now the animal has attained its utmost contraction, 

 and the threads lengthen no more. But already they are 

 disappearing; each is returning into the body by the ori- 

 fice at which it issued. It is, as you may see by examin- 

 ing it carefully with a lens, gradually contracting into 

 small irregular coils, at that end which is attached to the 

 animal; and these little coils are, one* after another, sucked 

 in, as it were, through an imperceptible orifice. 



Before the whole have disappeared, we will secure a 

 portion for examination. For this end I cut off with a 

 sharp scissors about one-sixth of an inch of the extremity 

 of one of the threads, which now I transfer to a drop of 



