360 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
CORALS, SEA-ANEMONES, AND 
JELLY-FISHES 
W ITH the Sea-anemones and 
Jelly-fishes almostthe lowest 
organised group of living 
animals is reached. As typified by an 
ordinary sea-anemone, the body may 
be described as a simple sac, the 
orifice of which is inverted for some 
little distance, and held in position 
with relation to the outer wall by a 
series of radiating partitions. One or 
more rows of tentacles, varying in 
number and character according to the 
species, surround the mouth of this 
partially inverted sac. There is no 
distinct intestinal track, the whole 
space enclosed within the outer wall 
and ramifying among the radiating 
partitions containing the digestive 
juices. The radiating membranous 
partitions develop upon their surfaces the reproductive elements, and in the case of Corals, 
which are merely skeleton-producing 
sea-anemones, partly secrete within 
them the symmetrical radiating cal- 
careous plates so characteristic of the 
group. 
Some thirty odd species of sea- 
anemones are indigenous to British 
waters, and one or more of these 
will be familiar to most readers. The 
Strawberry-anemone, clinging to the 
rocks as a hemispherical lump of 
crimson, green, brown, or red and 
yellow speckled jelly when the tide is 
down, and expanding like a beautiful 
flower when the waters flow back upon 
it, is the commonest and in many 
respects the most beautiful of all, the 
circlet of turquoise beads, regarded as 
rudimentary eyes, developed around 
the outer margin of the tentacles, add- 
ing a charm possessed by few other 
species. The Daiilta-anemone, whose 
expanded disk and innumerable petal- 
like tentacles may measure as much 
as 6 or 8 inches in diameter, is the 
largest British species. These dimen- 
sions are, however, vastly exceeded by 
Fhotn by K'. Saville-Kent^ 
MUSHROOM-CORALS, WITH THE ANEMONE- 
LIKE POLYP EXPANDED 
Taken through the water on a coral-reef 
Photo by lAA. Saville^ Kent^ F.Z.S. 
A MUSHROOM-CORAL FULLY EXPANDED 
In this condition the coral, or skeleton of the animal, is entirely concealed 
