20. LIVING LIGHTS. 



mon, and well nigh the only, representative of its family 

 on our coast, within reach. Others there are, living in 

 deeper water, within reach of a hand dredge, as work with 

 such, in former years, well informed us. These are beautiful 

 and very showy, like large asters and zinnias. But we dwell 

 upon the in-shore one because it is always at hand and easily 

 obtained, if you know where to look ; and it well represents 

 the characters of the group. Time was, when, forty years 

 since, if some medical doctor of the town, or some of that ilk, 

 did not have a sort of half knowledge of the creature, no one 

 about did. But a few years before that, scientists in Europe 

 were quarrelling over the question. Is it a vegetable, or an 

 animal ? Dr. Marsigli, a nobleman, asserted that such were 

 vegetable, with further seeming good argument that the 

 creatures looked like flowers and nothing else, therefore they 

 must be flowers of the sea, notwithstanding that a poor, but 

 educated Londoner, by the name of Ellis, demonstrated in 

 good round science that they were animals. The striking 

 case of mistaken identity, with the force of nobility, carried 

 it. But Ellis lived to see his theory prevail. 



Scarcely any in the whole range of Nature's objects are 

 more surprising and more beautiful. The Urtieena nodosa 

 is a form found off our shores, which is luminous; the light 

 being confined to its tentacles, and to the soft portion near 

 the summit. 



One of the most brilliant of this group of animals is the 

 Ilyanthus scoticus, a kind usually found in ooze, the tentacles 

 appearing at the surface, and gleaming brightly, like the rays 

 of some fixed star. Even when brought up on the dredge, 

 these animals emit a brilliant light. 



Some of these sea-anemones are said to attach themselves 



