[to be continued.]
[SEA-ANEMONES.]
BY SARAH COOPER.
Many of you, no doubt, have learned, when at the sea-shore, the delight of climbing over wet rocks covered with slippery sea-weed, and peering into the little pools left between the stones to see if the great waves have dropped any treasures from the ocean. Those who have enjoyed this pleasure will gladly recall the sparkling pools, carpeted with rich-colored sea-weeds which half conceal the timid animals that live there.
In such pools the rocks, the shells, and the sea-weeds all have richer tints from the bright water that covers them, and one who loves beautiful things will linger beside the pools as if gazing into enchanted gardens.
On searching these rock pools we should find many curious animals. None would interest us more than the sea-anemone, though when we find it hiding in some dark corner, with its tentacles all drawn in, and looking like a soft brown lump, it may not promise much beauty.
The sea-anemone adheres firmly to the rocks, so we will not pull it off. If we watch long enough we shall see it begin to rise in the middle, and from the summit will creep out, very slowly and softly, beautiful tentacles like a wreath around the top. It is now that this singular animal looks like a flower, and deserves the name that it possesses. I think, though, it is not so much like the anemone as it is like a chrysanthemum or some other flower with a great many petals. You would be charmed with the delicate light-colored tentacles waving gently in the water.
Fig. 1.—Stomach and Chambers of Sea-Anemone.
In the middle of the tentacles is the mouth, leading into a hollow sac, which is the stomach. The remainder of the body is divided by partitions from top to bottom into open chambers. In Fig. 1 you will see the stomach at a, and the chambers at b.
There is an opening at the bottom of the stomach through which the food passes after being digested. Sea-water also enters the body through the stomach, and both the water and the nourishment circulate freely through the chambers. Each tentacle is a hollow tube connected at its base with one of the chambers, and readily filled with water. Here we have an explanation of the mysterious manner in which the sea-anemone swells itself out and then shrinks away again. The body and tentacles are enlarged by drawing in water to fill them, and when they are suddenly contracted the water is forced out through the mouth.
The sea-anemone has no hard skeleton whatever; all parts of the body are soft, like a stiff jelly. It can draw its tentacles in out of sight, and it will do so upon the slightest alarm, rolling itself into an ugly lump like the one we found. Allow it to remain quiet for a while, however, and it will blossom out as gorgeously as ever.
When any little crab, or worm, or small fish brushes past the tentacles, the lasso-cells are darted out to paralyze it, and the tentacles seize the prey and pass it to the mouth. The bones or shells which remain after the meal are thrown out from the mouth. The tentacles hold the prey tightly, so that even cunning crabs can not escape, and you know it is not the easiest thing in the world to catch a crab and hold it.
Sea-anemones are greedy creatures. It takes a great deal of food to satisfy their appetites, and their mouths can be extended to receive quite large animals. They eat mussels and cockles by sucking the body out of its shell. Great numbers of sea-anemones, in their turn, are devoured by other animals, their soft bodies offering little resistance.
Fig. 2.—Cluster of Anemones.
The variety of color in these animals is almost endless. Some of them are rich olive and chocolate colors, or purple dotted with green. One beautiful species has violet tentacles pointed with white; another, red tentacles speckled with gray. This one spreads out its green arms edged with a circle of dead white, while that one opens a milk-white top circled with a border of pink. In Fig. 2 is a cluster, of beautiful anemones. The two small ones at the right show how these creatures look when closed.
Some sea-anemones which live in exposed situations are of a dull, dusky brown, covered with rough warts, while animals of the same species, living in deep water, where there is less need of concealment, have smooth skins adorned with brilliant tints of rose, scarlet, or light green. This is a beautiful provision of Nature for protecting the little creatures by rendering them inconspicuous when left upon rocks by the retreating waves.
The number of eggs produced by sea-anemones seems almost incredible. A single animal is said to throw out three hundred eggs in one day. The eggs are little jelly-like lumps which are formed on the inside of the partitions, and are thrown out from the mouth. After swimming about by means of hair-like appendages called cilia, they settle on some solid body and begin to grow. Sometimes the young ones remain within the body of the parent until their tentacles have grown. They are then ready to settle down soon after reaching the water.
Sea-anemones increase by budding as well as by eggs. At the lower edge of the body little round knobs are sometimes formed, which separate from the parent and grow into perfect animals. If the tentacles or other parts of the body are removed, new tentacles soon grow in their places. If an individual is torn in pieces, each fragment has the power of forming for itself a mouth and throwing out tentacles, and becoming a new sea-anemone, perfect in all its parts.
Most species live in holes among the rocks, attached to stones or shells, over which they slide in a clumsy manner. They are especially fond of deep dark grottoes, and when they have taken full possession of such a place, they may be found clinging to the sides and roof of the cave, and displaying their charms without reserve. Although they do not enjoy the glare of the bright sun, they expand best in mild, clear weather, and remain closed when the sea is rough and stormy.
A few of these animals float on the ocean. One sea-anemone is fond of a roving life, and having no very good means of travelling about, it attaches itself to the back of a certain kind of crab, and accompanies the crab in all its wanderings. There seems to be an attraction between the two, and one is rarely seen without the other.
Another species is mostly found clinging to the shell of a whelk, but for certain good reasons it never clings to a living one. The whelk burrows in the sand. This would be disagreeable and inconvenient to the anemone, so it prefers a dead shell which has been taken possession of by a hermit-crab, and henceforth travels about with the crab. We would scarcely look for affection in a crab, but it has been said that the hermit grows fond of its companion, and that when it has outgrown its shell and has selected a new one, it will carefully lift the anemone from the old home and place it on the new one, "giving it several little taps with its big claws to settle it."
I hope that none of you will fail to hunt up these lovely rock pools when you have an opportunity. The pleasure of a visit to the sea-shore is greatly increased by an interest in the strange forms of animal life which we see there and nowhere else. A glass jar filled with sea-water is often a source of great delight. In it you may drop any strange-looking object that has excited your curiosity. Perhaps this strange object may prove to be some odd little animal which is not yet dead, but which will revive with the touch of the life-giving water.
Most of these animals are timid, but they will expand when they are left perfectly still. In this way we may watch their habits and their hidden beauties. Sea-anemones do nicely in such an aquarium, and as they cling to the side of the jar, we can observe all parts while they are in action. By far the pleasantest way to learn about them is to let them tell their own story. The water must be changed frequently, for impurities are constantly passing from the bodies of even these delicate animals. They will soon die if placed in fresh-water.
"THE MINUTE-HAND OF THE CLOCK."[1]
A GERMAN BOY'S ADVENTURE.
BY DAVID KER.
"Kaspar, thou little rogue, how often shall I tell thee not to meddle with that clock?"
"I was only watching the wheels go round, father," said a sturdy little fellow in a soiled leathern jacket, starting up with a half-mischievous look in his blue eyes.
"And what hast thou to do with the wheels, eh? Suppose this clock is stopped or put wrong some day by one of thy tricks, what shall I, Hans Scheller, custodian of St. Martin's Church, say to the Town Council? Dost thou know what birch porridge is, thou rogue? Beware, or I'll give thee such a taste of it as shall make thee go round faster than the wheels."
Poor Hans was indeed kept in constant terror by his inquiring son's uncontrollable habit of going wherever he ought not. The old Church of St. Martin was a famous play-ground for any boy, with its shadowy aisles, and countless pillars, and tall towers, and deep niches, and half-ruined battlements; and the worthy custodian, when he awoke from his after-dinner nap in his little room at the foot of the great clock tower, never knew whether he should find his hopeful boy hiding behind the altar-screen, trying to blow the organ bellows, playing hide-and-seek among the pinnacles of the roof, or sitting astride of a carved spout a hundred and sixty feet above the pavement.
All this, however, might have been forgiven; for the old custodian was really as fond of his "little rogue" as the boy, with all his wildness, was of him. But the one thing that Hans could not pardon was the danger caused by his son's restless inquisitiveness to his beloved church clock. It was his pride and glory to be able to tell every one that during the whole forty years that he had been in charge of the "St. Martin's Kirche," the clock had never stopped or gone wrong; and nothing would convince him that it was not by far the finest clock in the whole world.
"Don't tell me of the big clock of Strasburg Cathedral," he would say, with an obstinate shake of his gray head. "Could it go forty years on end, think you, without the slightest deviation? No, that it couldn't, nor any other clock on the face of the earth except this one."
Mindful of Kaspar's inquiring turn of mind, his father, having to do some marketing in the town the day after our hero's stolen visit to the clock, locked the door of the tower, and took the key along with him.
"No harm can happen now," he muttered; "and, in any case, I shall be back before he gets out of school."
But, as ill-luck would have it, the teacher was called away by some business that afternoon, and the boys got out of school more than an hour earlier than usual. Kaspar, finding his father gone, went straight to the door of the clock tower, and looked rather blank on discovering that it was locked. But he was not one to be easily stopped when he had once made up his mind. Getting out upon the roof, and crawling along a cornice where only a cat or a school-boy could have found footing, he crept through an air-hole right into the clock-room.
For some time he was as happy as a child in a toy shop, running from one marvel to another, until at length he discovered another hole, and thrusting his head through it, found himself looking down upon the market-place through the face of the clock itself. But when he tried to withdraw his head again, it would not come.
It was such a queer scrape to be in that Kaspar was more inclined to laugh than to be frightened; but suddenly a thought struck him which scared him in earnest: his neck was in the track of the minute-hand, which, when it reached him, must inevitably tear his head off!
Poor Kaspar! it was too late now to wish that he had left the clock alone. He tried to scream for help, but with his neck in that cramped position, the cry that he gave was scarcely louder than the chirp of a sparrow. He struggled desperately to writhe himself back through the hole; but a piece of the wood-work had slipped down upon the back of his neck, and held him like a vise.
On came the destroyer, nearer and nearer still, marking off with its measured tick his few remaining moments of life. And all the while the sun was shining gayly, the tiny flags were fluttering on the booths of the market, and the merry voices of his school-fellows who were playing in the market-place came faintly to his ears, while he hung there helpless, with Death stealing upon him inch by inch. His head grew dizzy, and the measured beat of the ticking sounded like the roll of a muffled drum, while the coming hand of the clock looked like a monstrous arm outstretched to seize him, and the carved faces on the spouts seemed to grin and gibber at him in mockery. And still the terrible hand crept onward, nearer, nearer, nearer.
"What can that thing in the clock face be?" said a tourist below, pointing his spy-glass upward. "Why, I declare it looks like a boy's head!"
"A boy's head!" cried a gray-haired watchmaker beside him (one of Hans Scheller's special friends), snatching hastily at the glass as he spoke. "Why, good gracious! it's little Kaspar. He'll be killed! he'll be killed!" And he rushed toward the church, shouting like a madman.
The alarm spread like wild-fire, and before Klugmann, the watchmaker, had got half-way up the stairs leading to the tower, more than a score of excited men were scampering at his heels. But at the top of the stair they were suddenly brought to a stand-still by the locked door.
"It's locked!" cried Klugmann in tones of horror, "and Hans must have taken the key with him, for it isn't here."
"Never mind the key," roared a brawny smith behind him. "Pick up that beam, comrades, and run it against the lock. All together now!"
Crash went the door, in rushed the crowd, and Kaspar, now senseless from sheer fright, was dragged out of his strange prison just as the huge bar of the minute-hand actually touched his neck. And so it fell out that poor old Scheller, coming home for a quiet afternoon nap, found the door of the tower smashed in, his son lying in a swoon, and his little room crowded with strange men all talking at once.
But from that day forth Kaspar Scheller never meddled with the church clock again.