SEA-ANEMONES. 
5°i 
reality extremely voracious, devouring large pieces of flesh, and sucking down 
mussels and oysters. When fed in an aquarium, the long grasping tentacles 
greedily surround the food, such as morsels of flesh, small fish, or crabs, given to 
them, and convey it to the mouth; not merely are the juices sucked out, but the 
flesh itself is digested, only the fat being rejected. Well-fed anemones change 
their skin frequently, no doubt because of their quick growth. During this 
process, they remain closely contracted, expanding again after it is completed ; the 
shed skin forming a loose, dirty-looking girdle round the base of the foot. Anemones 
only settle in places where the currents bring them the animal food they need; 
and are most plentiful where the current is strongest, as, for instance, at the 
entrance of harbours or on rocky coasts. Some species are in the habit of settling 
on other animals whose requirements make them frequenters of disturbed waters, 
hermit-crabs being especial favourites. Certain species again, such as the large 
yellow - and - brown - striped Actinia effoeta (see illustration below), are indeed 
always found fixed upon the shells inhabited by 
these crabs, the one mentioned being generally 
found with Pagurus striatus, a large Mediterranean 
crab which inhabits whelk-shells of suitable size. 
Two or three of these anemones often settle on one 
crab, which does not seem to be at all incommoded 
by his burden, while the former profit in the matter 
of food by the wanderings of their host. 
On account of the ease with which anemones 
are kept in captivity, their manner of reproduction 
has been well observed. With rare exceptions, they 
develop from eggs. Dalyell kept one for six years, 
and reared from it upwards of two hundred and 
seventy-six young ones. Two of these young lived 
for five years, producing eggs at ten or twelve 
months old, which hatched a couple of months later. He saw that the ciliated, 
infusorian - like larvae (see illustration on p. 500) settled down on the eighth 
day, losing their cilia, the first tentacles appearing during the process of attachment. 
Young anemones often pass through their whole development within the body- 
cavity of the parent. Even in a free condition sea-anemones can easily be studied. 
Gosse has well described the many British species, and Lacaze-Duthiers has given 
a still more detailed account of several kinds studied in connection with their 
development. He gives many details of the common European Actiniai equina 
found along the coasts of the English Channel in all rocky parts at low-water 
level. Its colour varies between scarlet, rose-red, dark red-brown, and olive-green, 
a distinguished characteristic being a circle of beautiful blue warts below the 
tentacles. 
Most anemones are provided with several circles of more or less similar 
cylindrical tentacles, but there are some specially beautiful species which, besides 
tentacles of the usual shape, have, either within or outside ol the circle of ordinary 
tentacles, lobed or leaf-like tactile and seizing organs. These belong to the family 
of the Cranibactinidoc. The beautiful Cvavibactis from the Red bea, shown in the 
a sea-anemone, Actinia effoeta 
(uat. size). 
