Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/191

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THE PARASITIC ANEMONE.

to the hands by handling; and repeated washings with soap, and even scrubbings with a brush, scarcely avail to remove it. It is insufferably nauseous.

In the accompanying picture the centre is occupied by this Anemone, seated on the shell of the common Whelk. From the same shell springs a branching zoophyte, Sertularia abietina, while a Brittle-star (Ophiocoma rosula) is creeping by means of its long snake-like arms over the lower part. Behind the Actinia are seen three or four leaves of that lovely sea-weed, Delesseria sanguinea; a tuft of Callithamnion roseum springs from a crevice in the rock above the Sertularia; a patch of the velvet-like Call. Rothii is seen on the stone in the foreground, and one of the mossy C. spongiosum in the rear. In front of this last are some young leaves of Rhodymenia palmata, and a frond of the same species is growing on the shell of the Whelk.