Having procured a small colony of Actiniæ, you need be under no anxiety about their diet, for they will exist for years without any further subsistence than is derived from the fluid in which they live. Yet strange as the statement will appear to many persons, the Actiniæ are generally branded with the character of being extremely greedy and voracious. 'Nothing,' says Professor Jones, 'can escape their deadly touch. Every animated thing that comes in contact with them is instantly caught, retained, and mercilessly devoured. Neither strength nor size, nor the resistance of the victim, can daunt the ravenous captor. It will readily grasp an animal, which, if endowed with similar strength, advantage, and resolution, could certainly rend its body asunder. It will endeavour to gorge itself with thrice the quantity of food that its most capacious stomach is capable of receiving. Nothing is refused, provided it be of animal substance. All the varieties of the smaller fishes, the fiercest of the crustacea, the most active of the annelidans, and the soft tenants of shells among the mollusca, all fall a prey to the Actiniæ.' This is a sweeping statement, and, although corroborated by Sir J. Dalyell and others, is one that requires to be received with a certain degree of caution. It most certainly does not apply to _A. bellis_, _A. parisitica_, _A. dianthus_, _troglodytes_, or any other members of this group; and to a very limited extent only is it applicable to _A. coriacea_ or _A. mesembryanthemum_. As may readily be conceived, the writer could not keep monster specimens, such as are often found at the sea-shore; but surely if the statement were correct that, _as a general rule_, the actiniæ eat living crabs, the phenomenon would occasionally occur with moderate-sized specimens, when kept in companionship with a mixed assembly of crustaceans. Yet in no single instance have I witnessed a small crab sacrificed to the gluttony of a small anemone. With regard to _A. mesembryanthemum_, _A. bellis_, and _A. dianthus_, they get so accustomed to the presence of their crusty neighbours, as not to retract their expanded tentacula when a hermit crab, for instance, drags his lumbering mansion across, or a fiddler crab steps through the delicate rays, like a sky terrier prancing over a bed of tulips. Thus much I have felt myself called upon to say in defence of certain species of Actiniæ; but with regard to _A. crassicornis_, I must candidly own the creature is greedy and voracious to an extreme degree.