102 



MODE OF EATING. 



without requiring food, but when it comes within 

 their reach, they can devour and digest unhmitei 

 quantities. Perhaps the best plan is to give them 

 a very tiny portion, which they eat, and which 

 only stimulates them to protrude their hungry 

 arms in the hope of getting more. Whenever 

 I fed my own specimens, I generally gave them 

 small pieces of beef, which they swallowed, and 

 after a few days rejected, having extracted all 

 the nourishment, and only left a white fibrous 

 mass. 



They were also very fond of flies, and ate 

 many of them. Once a great bluebottle fly 

 came buzzing into the room, and made such a 

 disturbance that I immolated him, and gave 

 him to the largest and hungriest anemone. About 

 three or four days afterwards I saw the bluebottle 

 floating on the surface of the water. On lifting 

 it out of the tank it fell to pieces, being in fact 

 the mere shell of the fly; all the interior having 

 been, by some mysterious process, extracted in 

 the stomach of the anemone. It is amusing 

 enough to see the way in which an actinia eats. 

 If a fly or a piece of meat be presented to its 

 tentacles, it is instantly seized by them, and 

 drawn to the mouth, the tentacle closing upon 

 it on all sides. The animal then literally tucks 



