ral history, named Ellis. He thought it a suitable name
because their tentacles are in regular circles and tinged with bright,
lively colors, nearly representing some of our elegantly fringed flowers,
such as the carnation, marigold, and anemone. And so they do while in the
water, and undisturbed. But when a receding tide leaves them on the shore
they contract into a jelly-like mass with a puckered hole in the top.
There"--pointing it out--"is the most common of the British species of sea
anemone. It attaches itself to rocks and stones from low-water almost to
high-water mark. The tentacula--these feelers that look like the fringe of
a flower--you see are nearly as long as the body is high, and nearly of
the same color. See, there is an azure line around the base, and on the
base are dark green lines converging toward the centre; and around the
edge of the mouth is a circle of azure tubercles, like turquoise beads of
the greatest beauty. I wish I could show them to you, but the mouth must
be expanded in order to make them visible. Ah, that is just the thing!" as
someone standing near threw in a bit of meat which had the desired effect,
the mouth of the anemone opening wide to receive it.

"Oh, they are very beautiful!" exclaimed Rosie, watching the appearance of
the beadlike tubercles of which the captain had just spoken.

"Don't they eat anything but meat, papa?" asked Neddie.

"Yes; crabs, sea-worms, and fish; the tentacula are furnished with minute
spears with which they wound their prey and probably convey poison into
the wounds."

"I suppose this is salt water they are all in?" Walter said enquiringly,
and was told that he was correct in his conjecture.

On leaving the building they spent some time in examining its outside,
finding its columns and arches wrought with calamus, fishes, frogs,
serpents, and tortoises, making them very appropriate and beautiful.

CHAPTER XVI.

"Papa, I wish we might go back to the Fair directly after supper and spend
the evening there," Lucilla said, as again they stood on the _Dolphin's_
deck. "I want so much to see the lighting up of the Court of Honor, then
go to the wooded island to see it with the lamps lighted; after that to
the Ferris Wheel again, to have the view from it by moonlight."

"Anything more, my child?" returned the captain, with his pleasant smile.

"I think it likely that may do for one evening, sir," she replied; "unless
my father wants to take me s