144 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



lessness of the animal a very familiar phenomenon? 

 The spider, the crab, the oniscus, and very many 

 animals " sham dead/' as schoolboys know, when 

 danger threatens ; these water-fleas " sham dead " when 

 the Polype or the needle touches them. I might have 

 rested my incredulity of the alleged paralysing influ- 

 ence on this one experiment ; but I confirmed it in 

 other ways. Dropping the larva of an Ephemeron 

 into the phial containing the Hydrse, I observed it 

 thrice caught by three diflerent Hydrae ; it did not 

 " sham dead," but tore itself away without visible hurt. 

 Nay, I also observed one of those animalcules known as 

 " paste-eels " for some time in contact with the ten- 

 tacle of a Hydra, on the stage of the microscope, but, 

 in sj)ite of its having no shell to j^rotect it from the 

 poison, it was unhurt by the contact. Not having a 

 Nais, I could not test what Siebold says of it ; but 

 what has already been mentioned must, I think, suffice 

 to convince the reader that the current opinion is an 

 error, founded on Observation unverified by Experi- 

 ment. It was only by verification, according to the 

 demands of inductive scepticism, that the error became 

 obvious.* 



Had Trembley's celebrated work on the fresh-water 

 Polypes been read by one in a hundred of those who 



* The day this was written I could not rest till I had dredged a 

 favourite pond, and brought home a supply of Na'ids, with which, on 

 the following morning, I tested Siebold's statement. First, I placed 

 a Xalsfiliformis in a glass cell with a Hydra viridis; but although its 

 wriggling constantly brought it into contact with the tentacles, it was 

 never grasj)ed. I then placed a Nais in the phial containing many 



