88 



small green specks, which give it sufficient resemblance to a huge 

 strawberry to justify its popular designation as the Strawberry 

 anemone. The smaller bright crimson var. appears to have a special 

 liking for the under-surface of big stones in deeper water. 



Urticina felina (Linn.)^ the Dahlia Wartlet, is plentiful under 

 overhanging ledges in pools, and at the bottom of narrow fissures, 

 or anywhere that gravel accumulates in which it can clothe itself by 

 means of the plentiful suckers on its column. It needs a practised 

 eye to detect a closed Dahlia. I strongly disapprove of the way 

 in which Ellis and others gave these creatures names borrowed 

 from flowers, but there are one or two richly marked forms of 

 felifia to which the term dahlia may be fitly applied. Especially 

 is this the case with the var. which Gosse labels purpurea, of 

 which I sent a specimen for exhibition. After being in the 

 aquarium for a short time fe.lina gradually drops her coating of 

 gravel as though aware that disguise is no longer effective. Instead 

 of the low, squat, broad column almost hidden by the over-arching 

 tentacles, as usually seen in the pools, she will now sometimes 

 elevate her column to a height of four inches and exhibit the 

 otherwise rarely seen thick parapet near the summit. Felina 

 appears to be an almost omnivorous feeder judging by the mixture of 

 rubbish turned out by newly caught specimens. Sponges, Tf^/^i-Zra, dog- 

 whelks, limpets, and crabs do not seem out of the way, but with 

 them I have seen turned out small seaweeds, such as the rosy 

 Griffithsia corallina, and more remarkable still the exceedingly 

 tough leaves of Samphire {Crit/unum maritttnu/n) ; and as 

 though to aid in the trituration and digestion of these things, 

 plenty of coarse sand. The sand was probably a mere accident, 

 taken inadvertently whilst swallowing something else. A few 

 evenings since a large Blennius pholis (the Shanny) in my possession 

 managed to fall a victim to a large felina. Pholis I consider to 

 be a peculiarly wideawake fish, swift in his movements though some- 

 what heavy, and I should not have expected felina to catch him 

 napping. I believe he must have been deceived by the fact that 

 felina was a new inhabitant of his vessel and was well coated 

 with gravel ; he probably took her for a rocky eminence upon 

 which he might rest as is his wont. Anyway, I discovered him 

 lying dead across her mouth, her stomach extruded and wrapping 

 his underside. Digestion had already commenced, although little 

 more than an hour before I had seen p/iolis in the best of health and 

 spirits. He was about five inches long, and felina had evidently 

 been unable yet to get him "end on" in order to swallow him. 



Anemofiia sulcata (Penn,), the Opelet, is very plentiful; the 

 younger specimens crowded together and half-buried amid the 

 corallines in the pools, but the adult specimens float off in their 

 restless way, and attach themselves temporarily to rocks in much 

 deeper water, or to the broad fronds of tangle. 



Cereus pedunailafus {Venn.), the ridiculously-named Daisy .Anemone 



