THE SEA-PINK. 
569 
The beautiful Opelet, or Green-anemone, in the oleograph, may easily be recognized by 
the great length of its many tentacles, which wave, and twist, and twine, and curl like so many 
snakes. It has but little power of retracting the tentacles, and is, therefore, more conspicuous 
than many other species. It is tolerably hardy, enduring confinement well, but requiring food 
more often than is the case with the other Actiniae. Like all other members of this order, the 
Opelet is able to arrest passing objects by means of the tentacles, and does so by the aid of a 
wonderful array of weapons unexampled in the animal kingdom. 
If a portion of a tentacle be examined under a moderately powerful microscope, it will be 
seen to be studded with tiny cells, in each of which lies coiled a dark thread. On applying 
pressure to the cell, it suddenly discharges the coiled thread, which proves on closer examina- 
tion to be a long, wiry dart, often of wondrously complex structure, and capable of penetrating 
into any soft substance with which it comes in contact. Elaborate accounts and drawings of 
these cells and their contained weapons maybe found in Mr. Gosse’s valuable “ Sea- Anemones 
and Corals,” a work to which I gladly refer my readers for many interesting details respecting 
the beautiful creatures on which we are at present engaged. 
Though the human skin be a tougher and harder substance than the prey generally 
brought into contact with the tentacles, it yet can feel the effects of the individually minute 
but collectively potent weapons with which these delicate tentacles are armed. A finger which 
is touched by a tentacle is instantly conscious of being seized, as it were, and forced to adhere 
to the soft waving membrane which it could crush with a single effort. On most persons this 
adherence has no particular effect ; but those who possess delicate skins, and a sensitive 
nervous system, are much worried by blisters and pustules occasioned by the assaults of these 
microscopical weapons. A young- eel, measuring six inches in length, and half an inch in 
thickness, was killed in a few minutes by mere contact with the tentacles, and in a very short 
time was tucked quietly away in the creature’s stomach. These weapons are most numerous 
at the tips of the tentacles, just where they are most needed. 
The Scottish Peaklet ( Ilyanthus scoticus). This is a member of a genus once thought 
very rare in Europe, but now necessarily expanded into a family, and found to contain a 
considerable number of species. Most of the Pearlets are able to crawl over solid bodies ; 
some inhabit tubes ; others are found burrowing in the sand ; while nearly all are able to puff 
out the hinder part of the column with water. 
Little is known respecting the history of the Scottish Pearlet, save that it is a very rare 
species, and has only been found in deep water. All the tentacles are very slender, and marked 
with a dark line. 
The Pufflets are so called because they possess the power of puffing out the hinder part 
of the column until it assumes a somewhat globular shape. A European species of this genus, 
the Painted Pufflet ( Edwardsia callimorpha ), appears to be one of the burrowers, its body 
being hidden beneath the sand, and the beautiful tentacles just protruding from the surface. 
Aone of the Pufflets have many tentacles. 
We may here briefly notice another example of the same family. 
The Yestlet is one of those members of the family which inhabit tubes. All of them are 
remarkable from the fact that they possess no adherent base, but, as a compensation for this 
deficiency, are furnished with an adherent power upon the stem, enabling them to crawl freely 
over solid bodies. In this species, the tube is cylindrical, and very wide in comparison with 
the dimensions of the inhabitant ; it is of tough, paper-like consistence, rather thick, and is 
composed of many layers of intertwining fibres, mixed with sand and mud. The ordinary 
length of the animal is six or seven inches, and the width of the flower-like plumes about an 
inch and a half. Mr. Gosse found that he was able to remove the creature from its opaque 
dwelling, and place it in a tube of glass, which the animal accepted as a useful substitute, 
without troubling itself to reconstruct another house. 
The beautiful creature called Sea-pink, or Plumose Anemone ( Actinoloba dianthus ), 
Vol. III.— 72. 
