128 



FIRST LESSONS IN ZOOLOGY 



and 89). Touch tlic frinsje of tentacles with your finger-tip 

 and feel liow they cling to it. If it were a small animal, 

 like a sea-snail, these deadly tentacles would hold it fast 

 and slowly carry it into the mouth. Inside the body is a 

 cylindrical hollow, which is really a primitive kind of 

 stomach. But there is no heart nor brain nor lungs in 



Fig. Sq. — Sea-anemones in a tide-pool at Point Lobi.'S, near Monterey, Cal. ; 

 these specimens are six inches in diameter across the mouth end. 

 (Photograph by author, from living specimens in situ.) 



this simple body. It is only a thick-walled sac, with the 

 mouth surrounded by food-catching tentacles. 



The coral animals, or coral polyps, are simply a kind 

 of sea-anemone which secretes in its otherwise soft bod)-- 

 wall a ston)' skeleton of carbonate of lime which persists 

 after the polyp is dead. We know these animals chiefly 

 by their skeletons, which we see in masses in collections, 



