OCEAN GARDENS ; 



yet they no doubt exist in all, as they are not merely 

 ornamental, hut essential organs, peculiar to this 

 class of creatures ; heing reservoirs from which they 

 can shoot forth a thread, furnished with a barbed 

 and poisoned dart, by means of which they are able 

 to attain an enemy, or yictim, far beyond the reach 

 of their tentacles. Mr. Gosse very graphically de- 

 scribes the death of a small fish struck by one of 

 these thread-borne poisoned arrows, at some dis- 

 tance from the offended Actinia^ who launched his 

 dart, as it seemed, for no greater provocation than a 

 slight disturbance of the water rather nearer to his 

 retreat than was agreeable. 



The Actinia gemmacea^ it would appear, is a 

 more voracious creature than most of his congeners, 

 for Dr. Johnston, in his splendid work on the British 

 Zoophytes, describes one of this species that had 

 managed to swallow a shell of JPecten maximm 

 as large as a common saucer, its own natural dia- 

 meter not exceeding two inches. It managed, 

 however, to distend its elastic form sufficiently to 

 receive the enormous prey; but the shell divided 

 the stomach into two completely separate depart- 

 ments, the lower one being thus perfectly shut 

 off from its usual supplies. To meet this difficulty, 

 the organic economy of the creature adapted itself 



56 



