Passaic City record., 1891-10-03

tive resemblance. Here they swim about,
and are, according to some authorities,
sometimes caught, though in hundreds
which have examined it was never nv
good fortune to find the little fish en-
tangled or caught in the tolls of its hoist.
The physalia varies its sail and is blown
along, trailing its tentacles behind,
around which the little pilots swim, float
or lie; now darting out at bits of floating
weed, scampering away at the approach
of larger fishes, but showing a decided
curiosity for all strange objects, just as
in the case of the shark pilots.
1t is very difficult to make these little
pilots or attendants leave their consort.
When I lifted the pEysalia from the
water the fishes darted about in great
dismay, taking up their position beneath
the boat, but returning to the dangerous
man-of. as soon as it was returned to
the water. Sometimes the pilots were
obliged to desert the ship. When the
wind blew gale the bubbles woulo be
stranded upon the beaches in such num-
bers that there would often bea winding
winnow of bubbles along shore, the
wrecks of the beautiful man -of-war, but
the pilots were nowhere to be seen. As
the little crafts went ashore they made
their way to some other protector.
If appearance are to be considered,
then certainly the sea anemones must be
included among the pilots, as there is
one, if not several, kinds that in some
incomprehensible way takes up its posi-
ton on the tip-top of crabs back and
there lives, moving about with its host,
and we can imagine keeping its myriad
eyes open for the main chance; but that
it tells what it Sees to the crab that is
thus forced to bear it we may readily
doubt. Why the anemone takes this
position, and why the crab permits it,
opens up wide field for speculation.
The anemone is the natural food for a
large number of fishes. Captain Bart
lett, the commander of the ship Blake
in her dredging trip in the Caribbean
Sea, told me that he dredged a large
number of cod in very deep water where
it was very cold, and that almost every
one caught had large sea anemone in its
mouth. Looking at it in this light the
crab might object to tenant that was
liable to be gobbled up at any moment,
as large fish would not, in all proba-
bility, object to an anemone with good
plump crab at the other end. On the
other hand it is possible that the anem-
one may attract small fry, and SO
act as decoy, che crab lying buried in
the sand and darting up to seize the in
truder. Various suggestions have been
made to account for the association, but
the real reason is not known, and must
leave it to my young readers to decide
in this case which is the pilot, the crab
or the anemone. 1t might be said that
the position Of the anemone was entirely
accidental were it not found on SO many
individuals, and some experiments have
been made with another crab and anem-
one which show that the attachment at
least in this instance is on the side of the
crab. The one in question was found to
bear an anemone not on its back, but on
one of its big claws, SO that when feeding
and tearing its prey the anemone was
brought into the direct neighborhood of
the ford and obtained its share; in fact,
when the crab dined it was invariably
present. A naturalist who made the
discovery thought that it was merely an
accidental occurrence, but nearly all the
crabs which he found had their anemone
companions. One day he took several
crabs and carefully removed the anem-
ones, but leaving them all in the tank