over yon yielding Anemone. Heedless of its hundred arms, so generally
dreaded and avoided, she jumps this way and that across its wide mouth;
and now, seated on its back, she snatches morsels from its shrinking
side. Now look at her sister sprite, Crazy Kate. Her head adorned with
a long plume of Coralline, she is tearing ribbon-like shreds from the
silky lettuce and hanging them upon her already fantastic person. Anon
she dances in mad glee, and next her arms are solemnly stretched upward
in grotesque similitude to one in prayer.

When she is hungry, she will, one by one, take off those weedy trophies
from her back and feed upon them.

Why do you start? That is not a sea-serpent winding from under the arch,
but only an innocent Eel. Yet innocent and tiny though it be, there is
something frightful about it. Its fixed, staring eye, its snake-like
stealthiness, bid you be on your guard. Sometimes it rises behind that
bushy Carrageen, and with high uplifted head peers over at me in such
a way that I am half afraid; it is so like the old pictures of Satan
tempting Eve.

Would you like to see an Actinia eat? I will drop a bit of raw oyster
upon its outspread disk. See with what eager start it closes its fingers
about the dainty viand, passing it along slowly, but surely, to its
now gaping mouth, while every nerve is vibrating with the anticipated
pleasure of the feast! That milk-white one is my favorite, and I call it
Una. Seated in modest contentment on that brown-stone seat, she upturns
her pure face to the mild light of evening; but folds her arms, and bows
her head, and veils herself, when the noon-day sun gazes too ardently
upon her.