70 LIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 
300, in one day. It is very difficult to see the young 
anemones born, because they are at first so small ; 
but by careful watching they may be seen coming 
out through the mouth of their parent, sometimes in 
the shape of little hairy or ciliated swimming bodies, 
but more often as perfect tiny anemones which have 
lived inside their mother till their tentacles have 
grown. After they have been hatched among the 
partitions in the anemone's body, they generally travel 
into her hollow tentacles, and from there they are 
passed out through the mouth. Then after walking 
about a little while on the tips of their tiny arms 
they settle down and begin their life. 
The first thing they learn to do is to expand to 
find food, and this they do by taking in water at 
their mouth or through their skin and so swelling out 
the whole body. But should an enemy come by 
they soon force the water out again, and become a 
small lump, very difficult to seize. It is most 
interesting to watch an anemone when it wishes to 
expand, gradually filling itself with water, and 
stretching its tender skin till each tentacle falls in its 
place as a graceful flexible tube, and then again in a 
moment, if you touch it, the water is squirted out, and 
every delicate part drawn in within its tough hide. 
But if you touch a daisy anemone, or a cave- 
dwelling anemone, in this way you will find that it 
has another weapon of defence hidden in the body- 
tube itself. All the members of this family of 
anemones (Sagartiadcs) have minute slits scattered 
over the outside of their tube, and if you offend them 
these slits open and long white threads (d, Fig. 25) 
are shot out to strike you. These threads come from 
