Ch.X.] FISH-SHELTEEINa ANEMONE. Idl 



two feet in diameter. The tentacles were small, simple, and 

 very numerous, of a deep blue colour ; and the margin of 

 the tentacular ridge was broad and rounded, and folded in 

 thick convolutions, which concealed the entrance to the 

 digestive cavity. 



"WMle standing in the water, breast high, admiring this 

 splendid zoophyte, I noticed a very pretty little fish which 

 hovered in the water close by, and nearly over the anemone. 

 This fish was six inches long, the head bright orange, and 

 the body vertically banded with broad rings of opaque white 

 and orange alternately, three bands of each. As the fish 

 remained stationary, and did not appear to be alarmed at 

 my. movements, I made several attempts to catch it; but 

 it always eluded niy efforts — ^not dartiug away, however, as 

 might be expected, but always returning presently to the 

 same spot. Wandering about in search of shells and 

 animals, I visited from time to time the place where the 

 anemone was fixed, and each time, in spite of aU my dis- 

 turbance of it, I found the little fish there also. This sia- 

 gular persistence of the fish to the same spot, and to the 

 close vicinity of the great anemone, aroused in me strong 

 suspicions of the existence of some connection between them. 



These suspicions were subsequently verified; for on the reefs 

 of Pulo Pappan, near the island of Labuan, in company with 

 Mr. Low, we met with more than one specimen of this gigantic 

 sea-anemone, and the fish, so unmistakeable in its appearance 

 when once seen, again in its neighbourhood. Raking about 

 with a stick in the body of the anemone, no less than six 

 fishes of the same species, and of various sizes, were by 

 degrees dislodged from the cavity of the zoophyte, not swim- 

 miag away and escaping immediately, but easily secured on 

 their exit by means of a smaU hand-net. Thus the con- 



