NOTES ON ANEMONES. 23 



smaller was got rid of, the larger one closed quickly and com- 

 pletely, then promptly opened again. During the following days 

 they were both again in their usual situations. Some time 

 previously I had interrupted this process and freed the smaller 

 from the larger, under the impression that the one was eating 

 the other. The behaviour described above is peculiar, and I do 

 not pretend to understand or explain the significance of it. 



Peachia. 

 In " The Structure and Habits of Peachia hastata (Gosse) " 

 (Proc. Eoyal Dublin Soc, N. S., vol. iv., 1885), A. C. Haddon 

 and G. Y. Dixon give a good account from Holdsworth (Ann. 

 N. H., 1859) of the way in which P. hastata buries itself. 

 Observations made in 1914 entirely corroborate the account 

 there given. With regard to feeding habits, they say : " This 

 Anemone can swallow * a good-sized piece of food if it is placed 

 on its disc," such food is taken quickly, " and often without the 

 aid of the tentacles at all. . . . The tentacles ... do not seem 

 to be provided with urticating powers to the same extent as the 

 tentacles of other Anemones ; for Shrimps and little fish that 

 haunt flat sands brush against and even rest upon them, with- 

 out suffering any apparent inconvenience." These remarks and 

 a number of experiments and observations which I have made 

 show that Peachia does not prey on other animals as the ordinary 

 Anemones do. I supplied my Peachias with Gammarus, Plankton, 

 and young fish a few days old, and found that the Peachia made 

 no attempts to capture them. So I concluded that Peachia has 

 some other way of procuring food. I then put powdered carmine 

 into the water, and found that there was a steady ciliary 

 incurrent stream through the conchula. After the carmine had 

 been going in for a few minutes a carmine-laden mucus thread 

 began to be extruded from the opposite (asulcar) side of the 

 mouth. Diatoms were seen to be taken in in the same way as 

 the carmine. Haddon and Dixon also say: "Peachia hastata 

 . . . may often be seen with its tentacles withdrawn while the 

 conchula is still protruded level with the top of its hole. . . . 

 Sometimes when it projects perpendicularly out of the hole it 



* The italics are mine. — B. E. 



