SEA ANEMONES AND CORALS 



45 



and farther north. Large specimens are aljout three inclies wide 

 and four high. When expanded the body is cylindrical with a 

 dense fringe of tapering tentacles surrounding the slit-like mouth. 

 The tentacles are covered with minute hair-shaped organs, or cilia, 

 which wave outward so as to create a current from the base toward 

 the tip of the tentacle, and they are also armed with thread cells 

 that sting the small creatures upon which the anemone feeds. 



These sea anemoaes develop from eggs, but they also slowly 

 divide ; an originally single anemone sometimes splitting longitu- 

 dinally until two are produced. In addition ilrs. M. L. Ilammatt dis- 

 covered that little anemones are often budded out from the Ijase of 

 large ones. 



Tlie body of the anemone contains powerful muscles, and when 

 the animal is disturbed these contract so that the tentacles are rolled 

 inward and hidden away, while tlie body becomes a mere dome-like 



Fig. 



'/: WHrrE-ALtMKD ANEMONE. From Life. 

 Specimens in tlie New Vorlv Aquaiiiim. 



mass. Long, white, thread-like filaments are also extruded through 

 pores in the sides of the body. These filaments (Fig. 20 J, are called 

 aeoiuia, and bear great numbej's of stinging thread-cells. 



The White-Armed Anemone, ( Saijaiiia leucolena, Fig. 21), is 

 common off tlie Long Island coast, and extends from the Carolinas 

 to Cape Cod. It is slender, the body being somewhat more than 

 two inclies long, while the tentacles are about one inch in length. 



