-ZOOPHYTES. 269 



sufficient for a single meal, and they are all dis- 

 solved before the anemone casts forth the useless 

 shell. 



Dicquemare, by changing the sea-water of the 

 vessel in which they were held, kept sea anemones 

 for some years, and tried numerous experiments 

 with them. He says that they foretell changes 

 of weather as surely as the barometer. Even 

 when kept within doors, they are sensible of at- 

 mospheric changes long before these are evident 

 to our less acute sensibilities ; and that great 

 naturalist thinks that they might be kept in sea 

 water, daily renewed, and might serve the mariner 

 as a sea barometer. 



The Actiniae are not easily injured. They pos- 

 sess, in common with other creatures low in the 

 scale of animal organization, a great tenacity of 

 life, and a wonderful power of renewing any muti- 

 lated portion. They may be immersed in hot 

 water, or frozen ; their arms may be cut off, their 

 very bodies cut into two or more pieces, yet, give 

 them time, and again we find them forming into 

 a circular body, and little arms growing out afresh 

 on the portion from which they had been severed ; 

 while the rays, in the course of a few weeks, 

 again form themselves into a living flower. Eyes 

 they have none, and yet not a cloud can pass over 

 the blue sky on a summer's day a cloud which 

 would hardly warn the scarlet pimpernel to close 

 against coming rain but the anemone shrinks as 

 if injured ; and so sensitive is it to the presence of 

 fresh water, that a plunge of only a few minutes 

 destroys it. Rooted as they are to the rock, yet 

 they can, at will, unfasten themselves from their 

 attachments, and creep about over its surface, 



