228 Z. HELIANTHOIDA. Lucernaria. 



the body will after a time produce new tentacula " pretty near as they 

 were before the operation ;" while the upper portion swallows food as 

 if nothing had happened, permitting it indeed at first to come out at 

 the opposite end, "just as a man's head being cut off, would let out 

 at the neck, the bit taken in at the mouth," but which it soon learns 

 to retain and digest in a proper manner. In an experiment of this 

 kind, the upper half, instead of healing up into a new basis, actually 

 produced another mouth and tentacula, so that an animal was formed 

 which caught its prey, and fed at both ends at the same time! If 

 again the section of the body is made in a perpendicular direction so 

 as almost to divide it into two halves, these halves unite again in a 

 few days. If the section is complete, two perfect individuals is the 

 result ; and to complete the wonder, if the body is torn away and 

 only a portion of the base remain, from this fragment a new offspring 

 will sometimes rise up to occupy the place of its parent !* Yet these 

 creatures, almost indestructible from mutilation and injury, may be 

 killed in a few short minutes, by immersion in fresh water. 



21. LucERNARiA,f Muller. 

 Character. Body somewhat campanulate,Jixed lohen at rest 

 hy a narrow disk or stalk : mouth quadraiiyidar, hi the centre of 

 an nmhrellar expansion : tentacida disposed in ^cide1y separate 

 tufts on the margin. 



1. L. FASCiCULARis, ^^ peduncle of the body produced : tuft of 

 tentacula in pairs^ ahoid a hundred in eachj" Rev. Dr Fleming. 

 Lucernaria fascicularis, Fleming in Wern. Mem. ii. 248, pi. 18, fig- 1, 2. 

 Flem. Brit. Aiiim. 499. Templeton in Mag. Nat. Hist. ix. 304. Blainv. 



Actinolog. 664. Lucernaire fasciculaire, Lamouroux in Mem. dii 



Mus. ii. 470. 

 Hah. Common in Zetland, where " it is chiefly found on the leaves 

 of Fucus digitatus and F. esculentus, which grow in deep water," 

 Fleming. " Found on the coast at Donaghadee, after a strong east- 

 erly gale, adhering to a fragment of Fucus serratus," Templeton. 



" Colour dark brown ; peduncle cylindrical, flexuous, wrinkled, 

 with a narrow base ; body bell-shaped, subquadrangular, concave ; 

 margin divided into four pairs of arms, concave within ; mouth cen- 

 tral, tubular, consisting of a loose membrane, four notched at the tip, 



* Dicquemare in Pliil. Trans, abridg. xii. 640, &c. ; xiv. 129. Yet, accord- 

 ing to the same excellent naturalist, a wound or rent of the basis of an Actinia 

 often proves falal. xiii. 637. 



f F'l'ou) Lucerna, a himp. 



