60 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



cate membranous tube covered with vibratile cilia, 

 and enclosing, I believe, a still more delicate tube, 

 filled with granules and those thread- capsules which 

 anatomists declare (erroneously, as I shall prove here- 

 after) to be the urticating or stinging cells. Such is 

 the structure of this filament, which, although it had 

 long been removed from the animal, was twisting and 

 twirling itself like a worm in an unhappy state of mind ; 

 and moving across the stage with motions which it was 

 impossible to distinguish from voluntary motions. I then 

 crushed it into many minute fragments ; but long after- 

 wards I observed some of these moving about like so 

 many animalcules. Another day I observed what seemed 

 a tiny white annelid crawling at the bottom of a vase ; on 

 securincr it, I found it was one of the Actinia's filaments. 

 It may be answered that this motion was not life : 

 in both cases it was only ciliary action. But do not 

 let us cheat ourselves with phrases. What is the 

 motion of early embryos but ciliary action ? and what 

 is explained by the phrase? Where then does life 

 begin ? In that foot-pan you see a dozen lovely 

 Medusce, swimming to and fro with their laborious 

 pulsating movements — are not those movements the 

 finger-posts of vitality ? Well, then, now attend : 

 yesterday I was dissecting some of these, and, while 

 examining the exquisite fringe of tentacles which hangs 

 from the border of the disc, I observed every one of 

 these polyp-like tentacles move to and fro, now pro- 

 truded, now withdrawn into the substance of the disc, 

 each with independent action, and this on a portion of 



