THE WONDEES OF THE SHORE. 81 



for it is a delicate monster. At last, after ten 

 minutes' careful work, we liave brought up, from 

 a foot depth or more — what ? A thick, dirty, slimy- 

 worm, without head or tail, form or colour. A slug 

 has more artistic beauty about him. Be it so. At 

 home in the aquarium (where, alas ! he will live 

 but for a day or two, under the new^ irritation of 

 light), he will make a very different figure. That 

 is one of the rarest of British sea-animals, Peachia 

 hastata (PL XII. Pig. 1.), which differs from most 

 other British Actiniae in this, that instead of having 

 like them a walking disc, it has a free open lower 

 end, with which (I know not how) it buries 

 itself upright in the sand, with its mouth just 

 above the surface. The figure on the left of the 

 plate represents a curious cluster of papillae, which 

 project from one side of the mouth, and are the 

 opening of the oviduct. But his value consists, 

 not merely in his beauty (though that, really, is 

 not small), but in his belonging to what the long- 

 word-makers call an " interosculant " group, — a 

 party of genera and species which connect families 



