ZOOPHYTES. 267 



may be thrown out with so much force as to rise 

 to the height of at least a foot. 



To look down upon these flowers, one would 

 deem them the most helpless of living creatures. 

 The water, with its myriads of tiny insects, seems 

 to afford their proper nutriment, and none would 

 guess, to glance at them, that they could possibly 

 kill, and swallow crabs and shell-fish larger than 

 themselves. But the great Creator, when he made 

 them, furnished them all, helpless as they seem, 

 with the means of securing their appropriate nutri- 

 ment. They possess a poisonous secretion which 

 soon extinguishes life in the animal which comes 

 near them, and which can make us conscious of 

 its power to sting. This poison is not of equal 

 strength in all the species ; in some, it is sufficient 

 to cause only a slight sensation of tingling in the 

 fingers which have touched the anemone ; in others, 

 the sensation is more of a smarting or burning 

 nature. It appears, too, that different persons are 

 variously affected, even by touching the same 

 individual. The author had placed in a vessel of 

 sea water, a fine specimen of the Fig Marigold Sea 

 Anemone (Actinia mesembryanthemum)^ which she 

 was accustomed to touch many times during the 

 day. The tentacula closed immediately around 

 the intruding finger, producing only a slight ting- 

 ling. Her surprise was great at finding that the 

 same anemone, on being touched by another person, 

 communicated a more powerful sensation, which 

 her friend assured her was felt up the whole of 

 the arm. More than twenty persons touched this 

 anemone, and the writer was amused by observing 

 how variously they were affected; some being 

 only slightly tingled, while others started back as 



