
OUR SEA-ANEMONES. 257 
the hands, and especially those of persons having a delicate 
skin. But certainly no such charge has ever been brought 
against any of our native species. 
The Fringed-anemone makes a very pleasing pet in con- 
finement, and, if allowed plenty of room and fresh sea-water, 
will expand almost constantly. It feeds readily upon the 
flesh of all sorts of shell-fish, etc., and will not refuse bits 
of raw beef. And if necessity compels, it will live for 
months, or even a year, without food; but, curiously enough, 
it will continually grow smaller and smaller, so that a 
specimen, at first five or six inches high and two in diame- 
ter, may thus be reduced to the height of an inch, and the 
diameter of less than half an inch, the number of tentacles 
and chambers being proportionately reduced. In fact, under 
such circumstances, the animal seems to undergo a retrograde 
process, exactly the reverse of that by which it originally 
developed from youth to maturity. 
The ovaries of Actinias, and all similar animals, including 
the coral-polyps, are attached to the inner edges of the radia- 
ting partitions below the stomach, and are filled with im- 
mense numbers of eggs, which are discharged, when mature, 
directly into the fluid filling the body, and then are either 
harged very soon from the mouth, or are retained for a 
longer or shorter time, until they are hatched into miniature 
Actinias, which are discharged in different stages of develop- 
ment and of various sizes; but however small they may be, 
: they are perfectly competent to take care of themselves froni 
: the first. he Fringed-anemone, and some other kinds, 
: When they remove from places where they have long been 
: stationary, are liable to tear off and leave behind them little 
: fragments from the edge of the base, but every one of these 
nts will in a few days develop a little mouth and a 
7 “ie of tentacles around it, and will soon become a perfect 
O= Actinia, differing only in’ size from its parent. The 
“me effect may be obtained at will by cutting off little por- 
tions from the edge of the base with a sharp knife. This 
33 
AMER, NATURALIST, VOL. II. 






