372 MYSTIC ISLES 



was ready for a new shell, he left his old one and ex- 

 amined the new ones acutely. Finding one to suit his 

 expected growth, he entered it belly first, and trans- 

 ferred the anemone, by clawing and pulling loose its 

 hold, to the outside of his chosen shell. How skilfully 

 this was done may be judged by the fact that I could 

 not get one free without tearing the cup -like base which 

 fastened it. The anemone assisted in the operation by 

 keeping its tentacles expanded, whereas it withdrew 

 them if any foreign object came near. The stinging 

 cells of the anemone prevent fishes from attacking the 

 hermit, and that is the reason of his care for the parasite. 

 It is the commensalism of the struggle for existence, 

 learned not by the individual crab, but by his race. 

 Some crabs wield an anemone firmly grasped in each 

 claw, the stinging nematocysts of the parasite warding 

 off the devilish octopus, and the anemone having a share 

 of the crab's meals and the pleasure of vicarious trans- 

 portation. The anemone at the mouth of the shell 

 keeps guard at the weakest spot of the hermit's armor. 



These sea-anemones themselves are mysterious evi- 

 dences of the gradual advance of organisms from the 

 slime to the poem. They are animals, and attach them- 

 selves by a muscular base to the rocks or shells, or are 

 as free-swimming as perch. I saw them two feet in di- 

 ameter, seeming all vegetable, some like chrysanthe- 

 mums and some resembling embroidered pin-cushions. 

 They were of many colors, and are of the coral family. 



In this wonderful sea garden, where lobsters, crabs, 

 sea-urchins, turbos, starfish, and hundreds of other sen- 

 tient beings lived, I saw a thousand true scaled fish, most 

 of them highly colored, and many so curiously marked, 



