The common sea anemone (actinia) is to be found between tide marks on rocks under sea weeds or in tidal pools, but grows most luxuriant on the piles of bridges. The actinia is the type of the single polyps as distinguished from the compound coral polyps. It is a curious fact that the sea-anemones, of which there is a great diversity, are like Achilles, invulnerable except in one spot. They will bear an extraordinary amount of cutting and tearing, if only the base is kept unlacerated. Exquisite little creatures, torn in two by the splitting of the stones on which they rested, have displayed each ha acting as vigorously as if nothing had interfered with its integrity. In the course of some weeks not a trace was left that they had ever been wounded. The Abbé Dicquemare relates that he cut an anemone in two transversely, when the upper portion instantly expanded its tentacles and began feeding; in about two months tentacles began to grow from the cut extremity of the other portion, and thus he obtained two perfect anemones in the place of one. How marvelous is the tenacity of animal life! CHAPTER IX. EXTRAORDINARY TURTLES AND CRUSTACEANS. The Great Marine Turtle - A Creature Born with Oars and Paddles-Swift Swimmer-Dozing on the Water-Turtles' Nests in the Sand-Curious YoungstersRushing by Instinct for the Sea-Turtle Hunting-Delicious Food-Haunts of the Green Turtle-Natives Lying in Wait-Human Cruelty-Coriaceous Turtle-The Bony Lobster-Monstrous Pincers-Powerful Weapons-A Propeller Tail-Shedding the Old Crust-Escape from the Prison-New Growth of ShellsThe Numerous Crab Family-Singular Creatures-The Pea Crab-Hermit Crab-Looking Around for a New House-Moving into the New DwellingTussle between a Shrimp and Crab-Where Crabs Abound-Crab Sentinel Standing Guard-Casting off Broken Limbs-Horrid Crab of Madagascar— Sharp Points-Strange Land Crabs. T HE group of marine turtles has the structure so modified as to be well adapted to all the animal's habits. Its limbs are resolved into strong oars and paddles, which it uses with great dexterity, propelling itself with surprising power and swiftness -the green and hawk's-bill turtles in particular,—" and," says Audubon, "remind you by their celerity, and the ease of their motions, of the progress of a bird in the air." The food of the green turtle consists of marine plants, especially the sea-wrack; and, like cattle in a meadow, it grazes at the bottom of the sea, where it can remain for a considerable time, its nostril being furnished with a valve which closes when in the act of diving; and it is furthermore sustained by the large extent of its lungs, as also by the moderate demands of a slow circulation. It has sometimes been seen in the act of floating on the surface of the water, as if indulging in a sleep, sweetly induced by the gentle undulations of the waves; and its captors have been known to take advantage of this habit, by then making their approaches, to surprise and take their prey before it has time to effect its escape. The marine turtle inhabits a wide range of the torrid zone, and the shores of the Floridas, many of the West India Islands, and the Indian Occan, the Isle of France, and the Gallapagos, are the places of its most noted resorts. We come now to advert more particularly to the most entertaining, the most curious point, in the history of the marine turtle. The young turtle comes from an egg which is hatched, not at home in the sea, with which the mother is allied both by habit and structure, but on land, which is quite foreign to her nature. She comes out of the ocean, from a very long distance-hundreds of miles even-to search on the shore for a place suitable, not to any individual want of her own, but to the process of incubating her eggs; and, somehow or other, she always happens to find those localities which offer all the required conditions. A low, sandy, and solitary beach is the kind of spot she seeks for making her nest. To perform this duty, she starts on her voyage in the early part of the summer, traversing the sea, not individually, but collectively, in a multitude; the females being accompanied by the males as far as the precincts of the land. After sunset, the former leave the water, drag themselves inland over the beach, make their nests in the sand beyond high-water mark, lay their eggs in large numbers, and there leave them in charge of the sun, whose fostering influence is said to bring forth the brood in the course of from twenty to thirty days. The young turtles appear with shell unformed, and white as if they had been blanched. At once all seem to understand that they are away from home, and their only effort is to get as quick as possible into the sea, apparently as well acquainted with the way to it as if they had traversed it a hundred times before. They enter the ocean of less size than a dollar, and no more are they seen out of it until a weight of four or five hundred pounds has been attained; but how long such a size requires, and where all that time is spent, are questions that will not be easily answered. Cute Device for Hiding Eggs. According to Sir J. E. Tennent, and no doubt he is correct, the turtle forms a curve in going to and from the sea, as if seemingly aware that such a direction was the one most likely to deceive the depredator. An opportunity is afforded on the sea-shore of Ceylon for observing a remarkable illustration of instinct in the turtle, when about to deposit its eggs. As if conscious that if she went and returned by one and the same line across the sandy beach, her hiding-place would be discovered at its farthest extremity, she resorts to the expedient of curving her course, so as to regain the sea by the different track; and after depositing her eggs, burying them about eighteen inches deep, she carefully smoothes over the surface to render the precise spot indiscernible. The Singhalese, aware of this device, sound the line of her march with a rod till they come upon the concealed nest. Though previously timid and suspicious, yet during the time of laying her eggs the turtle may be approached and even mounted; still, for all that, she remains unaffrighted and immovable. Persons who search for turtles' eggs are provided with a light stiff cane, or a gunrod, with which they go along the shores probing the sand near the tracks of these animals, which, however, cannot always be seen, on account of the winds and heavy rains that often obliterate them. The nests are discovered not only by men, but also by beasts of prey, and the eggs are collected or destroyed on the spot in great numbers, as on certain parts of the shores hundreds of turtles are known to deposit their eggs within the space of a mile. They form a new hole each time they lay, and the sec ond is generally dug near the first, as if the animal were quite unconscious of what had befallen it. It will readily be understood that the numerous eggs seen in a turtle on cutting it up could not be all laid the same season. The whole number deposited by an individual in in one summer may amount to four hundred, whereas, if the animal is CORIACEOUS TURTLE. caught on or near her nest, the remaining eggs, all small, without shells, and as it were threaded like so many large beads, exceed three thousand. In an instance where that number was found, the turtle weighed nearly four hundred pounds. The young soon after being hatched, scratch their way through their sandy covering, and immediately , betake themselves to the water. The green turtle sometimes attains a length of five to six feet and a weight of 500 to 600 pounds. It received its name from the color of the delicious fat, which enriches the soups and other dishes of turtle. It is abundant in the tropical waters of the torrid |