SEA-ANUMONES. 7 



covery of one of Nature's secrets. "We recall one such made in 1858 

 or 1859. Though we at that time prepared an account for publication, 

 yet it never saw the light. In order to refresh our memory, we to-day 

 have taken from our desk this old manuscript, and given it a perusal. 

 We had among our aquarian pets a fine fringed actinia, Metridium 

 marginatum^ from Newport. To our glad surprise, we noticed one 

 day that, as it adhered to the glass side of the tank, it was surrounded by 

 a number of tiny young ones. The question was, where did they come 

 from? That they came from the ova I had weighty reasons for doubt- 

 ing. So we set ourselves to find out, if j)Ossible. One day we were 

 watching tliis anemone as it was gliding on the glass. Of course, the 

 entire base was moving. But no that is just where we at first were 

 in error, for there was a little speck of its base that would not go 

 along with the rest. There that little bit of the sucking-base stuck 

 and held its place stubbornly. The great base kept at it pulling, as 

 it seemed, until a mere thread-like shred of matter connected the main 

 mass and this little stubborn, speck-like remnant. And that connecting 

 shred stretched like a thread of India-rubber. For nearly an entire 

 day did this sort of thing continue, when at last the shred snapped, 

 and the one pai't was drawn up into the base and the other part into 

 the adhering speck or fi-agment. With our pocket-lens, we watched 

 that tiny bit which had seceded from the body politic, or rather, from 

 which the body politic had itself withdrawn. It soon gathered itself 

 up into a plano-convex speck. The next day we observed a depression 

 setting in at the convex point. In a day more we detected movement. 

 It was dividing, and there was a pulling in two directions. This did 

 not last over a day, and there were now two specks instead of one. In 

 about three days, at top of each, five little tentacles appeared, and a 

 tiny mouth. Wonderful to say, each was a young actinia. And 



Fig. 5. Fringed Actinia (dosed). 



how strangely begotten, too ! Sloughed off actually exscinded from 

 the base a veritable bit of that dear old mother ; not bone of her 

 bone, since bones she had none; but verily flesh of her flesh. This 

 was, indeed, to us a new sort of fission. How we did watch that pair 

 of self-made twins ! Very diminutive they were, truly ; but very great 

 pets for all that. 



