84 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



zoologists that neither these nor other marine creatures 

 are now to be seen there. At a later date public 

 marine aquaria were started with success in many 

 seaside towns, — Brighton, Scarborough, Southport, etc, — 

 and a very fine one was organized in Westminster and 

 another at the Crystal Palace. It is an interesting and 

 important fact, bearing on the psychology of the British 

 people, that most of these charming exhibitions of 

 strange and beautiful creatures from the depths of the 

 sea were very soon neglected and mismanaged by their 

 proprietors ; the tanks were emptied or filled with river 

 water, and the halls in which they were placed were 

 re-arranged for the exhibitions of athletes, acrobats, 

 comic singers, and pretty dancers. These exhibitions 

 are often full of human interest and beauty — but I 

 regret the complete disappearance of the fishes and 

 strange submarine animals. I have some hope that 

 before long we may, at any rate in the gardens in 

 the Regent's Park, see really fine marine and fresh- 

 water aquaria established, more beautiful and varied in 

 their coijtents than those of earlier days. 



There are four kinds of sea-anemones which are 

 abundant on our coast. They adhere by a <lisk-like 

 base to the rocks and large stones, and have the power 

 of swelling themselves out with sea-water (as have many 

 soft-bodied creatures of this kind), with all their tentacles 

 expanded. They have, in that condition, the shape of 

 small " Martello " towers, with their adhesive disk below 

 and the mouth-bearing platform above, fringed by 

 tapering fingers ; and they can, on the other hand, 

 shrink to a fifth part of their expanded volume, drawing 

 in and concealing their tentacles, which are in some 

 kinds perforated at the tip. One common on the rocks 

 at Shanklin and other parts of our Sout^^ Coast, but 



