CHAPTER VII. 



Polypifeba (Polypes). 

 Continued. 



Who is there, among the thousands that throng from our 

 cities and towns to breathe the air of the coast and to gaze 

 out on the boundless sea, that is not familiar with the 

 Sea- Anemones 1 And who is not eloquent in their praise 1 

 Who has not admired the starry flowers, all instinct with 

 life and sensation, that spread their beauteous petals 

 beneath the crystal water? — the Anthea, with its snaky 

 locks of satiny green, tipped with pink ; the Thick-horned 

 Bunodes in the dark tide-pool, sheltered beneath over- 

 arching tufts of crimson and purple weeds, as if, like the 

 modest violet, it would hide its charms, those pellucid 

 ccnes of crimson and white, set in gorgeous array, of 

 which it needs not to be ashamed ; the Daisy Sagartia, 

 expanding its broad and flat circular disk, soberly hued 

 and margined with an elegant fringe, over the edges of 

 some narrow fissure in the leprous rock 1 Who has not 

 felt somewhat of a naturalist's enthusiasm at seeing the 

 sea-worn stones studded with the plump, glossy, fruit-like, 

 Smooth Anemones (Actinia), their array of tentacles care- 

 fully packed away within the body, waiting the return of 



