Page:The Book of the Aquarium and Water Cabinet.djvu/96

84 disturbed, it is sure to perish. When removed from its native it should be kept on the stone or shell to which it is found attached, until it floats off of its own accord, and fixes itself elsewhere. When handled it throws out a number of white threads, which are afterwards withdrawn.

is very strange that where the animal and vegetable kingdoms meet, the forms should assume such close resemblances to each other, as to make it frequently a matter of difficulty to determine to which of the two great departments some special specimen shall be assigned. Here are the lovely sea-flowers—flowers only in name and appearance—representing the lowest links of animal life and pointing to that last link where the animal and the vegetable blend into one, bearing all the outward resemblances to flowers from which they take their appropriate names, yet all of them strictly animals, endowed with volition, and in their general organization assimilating to the extensive series of zoological orders which stand above and beneath them. The sea anemones are animals of the lowest class—zoophytes of the great Cuverian division of. It is in this division that animation is seen to tremble and flicker in the socket, and to become gradually extinguished as we descend the