VITALITY OF SEPARATED PARTS. 59 



Walk up to my working-table, and take the first pliial 

 or trough chance may present. You have chosen a 

 phial in which a quantity of thread-like worms are 

 wriggling like uninspired Pythonesses. You are mis- 

 taken in supposing them to be worms, — they are 

 nothing of the kind ; they are not even individuals. 

 In spite of your stare, I repeat the statement : they 

 are not individuals, they are organs. Why then do 

 they live and wriggle ? and of what are they organs? 

 The first question is easier to ask than to answer. 

 The second is as easy to answer as to ask ; so, like 

 an adroit teacher, who evades difficulties to di'op with 

 confidence on what is easy, I will answer it. In the 

 preceding chapter (p. 26) I recorded with some min- 

 uteness the finding of a Terebella buried in the sand, 

 its long thread-like tentacles waving in the air being- 

 all that was visible, until it was dug up. Those 

 tentacles are what you have in the phial before you. 

 While examininoj the worm, I observed that one of 

 its tentacles had been torn off", and was wriggling with 

 independent vivacity : I bethought me of trying how 

 long these organs would live separated from the body ; 

 so, cutting them all off", I placed them in this phial. 

 This was on the 21st May ; on the 25th some died; 

 but to-day is the 27th, and there are still several 

 vivacious. 



Nor is this by any means a solitary instance. The 

 other day I was examining one of those white fila- 

 ments which certain Actinim copiously throw out 

 when disturbed. The filament is nothing but a deli- 



