268 ZOOPHYTES. 



if stung by a nettle. The poison has a great effect 

 on the inferior animals. Woe to the crab or the 

 lobster which strays near the innocent looking 

 animal-flower : strong and active as he seems, he 

 has little chance of escape. Slowly, and with 

 apparent caution, the zoophyte seizes his prey, 

 and crowding around all his brilliant petal-like 

 arms, drags it into his stomach. He is swallowed 

 whole; and so much of him as can be converted 

 by the animal into nutriment, digests there ; while 

 again the anemone turns out of its mouth the shell, 

 or harder and indigestible portion of his victim. 

 Mr. Cocks remarks of one British species (Anthea 

 cereus,} " The fish which has been so unfortunate 

 as to be embraced by the tentacula of this ane- 

 mone for a few minutes, loses its activity, becomes 

 stupid, the eyes injected, and death soon closes the 

 scene. In August, 1845, I removed from the 

 stomach of an individual, a partly digested fish, 

 nearly four inches in length; and I have fre- 

 quently taken from the stomachs of others, crabs, 

 two and a quarter inches in diameter." Another 

 writer once remarked one of those mistakes in in- 

 stinct, which animals sometimes exhibit, in the 

 case of our most sagacious little insect, the bee. 

 It hovered over the anemone, which was just then 

 only covered by a rim of water, and evidently mis- 

 taking it for some gay marigold or other blossom, 

 the luckless insect darted through the water to 

 the mouth of the polype. It struggled to get free 

 for some time, but was held down till being 

 drowned, it was swallowed. Hungry creatures, 

 too, are these anemones. A little bee would not 

 serve one of them for his dinner, for delicate and 

 frail as they seem, three or four mussels are only 



