Page:The Book of the Aquarium and Water Cabinet.djvu/92

82 navies, that have found a common sepulchre in the waters, had given up their myriad souls to the conjuration of Glacus and Scylla, and all the dizzy troop of ocean spirits. It is, verily, a wondrous creature, of enormous size, and so delicately tinted, so light and fairy-like in structure, so constantly expanding and retracting its thousand delicate fingers, like the Indian blossom that the Brahmin believes to be endowed with life, that it never ceases to attract the attention of the coldest, and fill the ardent lover of nature with—

I have before me now five specimens of this splendid anemone. They are all expanded, and they glow in the sunshine like huge carnations of the brightest amber, one of them verging towards a pure white. Two of these are represented in the engraving, surrounded by fronds of Delesseria sanguinea, Callithamnium, and Griffithsia. The one attached to the perpendicular side of a stone is of the golden amber variety; when fully expanded it forms a massive column of five inches in height, at least, and nearly three in diameter. From the summit of the column the tentacles fringe over in rich masses, like the petals of a monster carnation, all of them in motion as if seeking something which they cannot find. The tentacular disk is deeply frilled and puckered, and constantly changes its outline under the capricious will of the animal; while, at the same time, the tentacles arrange and rearrange themselves into most confusing forms; then again expand to their utmost, and expose the oval mouth and