The
very biggest, a _Tealia crassicornis_, measures ten inches across when
he spreads his pearly fingers to their full extent. "In my young days"
we called him by the familiar name of Crassy; and found him so difficult
to keep in domestic captivity, that it was delightful to see him
blooming and thriving as he does in Tank No. 1 of the Great Aquarium.
His squat build--low and broad--contrasts well with those tall white
neighbours of his (_Dianthus plumosa_), whose faces are like a plume of
snowy feathers. All the sea-anemones in this tank have settled
themselves on the rocks according to their own fancy. They are of lovely
shades of colour, rosy, salmon-coloured, and pearly-white.
There are more than five thousand sea-anemones of various kinds in the
Aquarium; and they have an attendant, whose sole occupation is to feed
them, by means of a pair of long wooden forceps.
Reluctantly breaking away from such old friends, we pass through a door
into a long vault-like stone passage or hall, down one side of which
there seem to be high large windows, about as far apart as windows of a
long room commonly are. Behind each of these is a sea-pool like the
first one.
Take the first of the lot--Tank No.
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