THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 321 
contracting to a very diminutive size, so as easily 
to elude observation. The same reefs are enlivened 
also by numbers of another species of Sea-anemone 
(Zoanthus), which cover large surfaces of the rock, 
like beautiful carpets or mats of wide expanse. 
When opened beneath the water, under the beams 
of the sun, they display a series of squares with 
elevated margins, the interior being of a bright 
green, the exterior of a fawn colour. These, also, 
contract instantly onthe slightest touch; and thus 
eutire fields of them, being connected together by 
a common fleshy disk upon the rock, are changed 
in a moment, as if by magic, from brilliant green to 
dull brown, which again, as they recover from their 
alarm, is soon replaced by the verdant hue. 
Numerous species of Squid and Cuttle are ob- 
served in the Pacific, several of which have the 
power of making long leaps out of the water, even 
to the same height and distance as the Flying-fish, 
whence these kinds are denominated by seamen, 
Flying Squid. One of these, which appears to have 
been an Onychoteuthis, is described by Mr. F. D. Ben- 
nett, as having fallen, in one of its leaps, upon the 
deck of the ship in which he was sailing. The 
whole class to which these animals belong is re- 
markable for the powerful apparatus with which the 
animals are endowed for seizing prey, in the nume- 
rous long and flexible arms, furnished with cup- 
like suckers, which forcibly adhere to any object 
at the will of the creature. But the genus just 
mentioned is favoured above its fellows; for, in ad- 
dition to the usual structure, there is placed in each 
2 
