DR WRIGHT'S OBSERVATIONS. 177 



vation only of the first, and am strongly inclined to 

 believe in the third ; there is, however, nothing at all 

 improbable in the second and fourth, and either, or 

 both, may be ascertained by careful investigation, which 

 would rectify or confirm the observations of Kolliker 

 and Hollard. But it must not be forgotten that, al- 

 though a single case of distinct separation — a single 

 Actinia found bearing spermatozoa only on all its 

 septa — would suffice to establish the truth of the fourth 

 proposition ; yet for this to be established, the inquirer 

 must be rigorously certain that all the septa bear the 

 spermatozoa, the ova being everywhere absent ; and 

 even then no amount of such evidence will invalidate 

 the fact announced in the first proposition, that in some 

 cases the ova and spermatozoa are mingled ; a fact I 

 have quite recently discovered also in the fresh-water 

 Polype. Whether Actiniae are, or aie not, in general, 

 of separate sexes — and I think they are never or very 

 rarely so — the fact remains that they are also herma- 

 phrodite. Nor can this surprise us now we know that 

 even fish, which are almost universally of separate 

 sexes, also present hermaphroditism as a normal phe- 

 nomenon in the Perch genus.'^ 



To sum up the various points we have just been 

 considering, it appears that the Actiniae are of very 

 simple organisation ; that they have no sexual organs 



♦See DuFOSSE, in Annales des Sciences, 1857. Compare also 

 Huxley, On a hermaphrodite and fissiparous species of Tubicolar Anne- 

 lid, in the Edinburgh New Pkiloso^^hical Journal : January 1855, 

 pp. 11-12. 



M 



