TUBULARIA. o 



age, or increment, the tentacula become much recurved, their wonted re- 

 gularity is impaired, and their extremities exhibit approaching decay. 

 The pendent ovarian clusters spread luxuriantly over them ; the central 

 pouch, as if its faculties were exhausted, is empty and contracted, the 

 whole betrays a languishing, sickly aspect. Next, a point of intersection 

 may be discovered amidst the ruddy pith near the summit of the stalk ; 

 and the head soon separating there, falls amidst the surrounding element, 

 but not to perish immediately : demonstrations of life continue during 

 many hours ; nay, they are protracted for eight days or longer in vigorous 

 specimens. 



Some analogy with the form of the simple hydra may be now recog- 

 nised in this separated portion ; and we shall afterwards find a correspon- 

 dence between its condition and that of the nascent product in its earlier 

 stages. But neither has the short stump, under the head, which is drawn 

 from the stalk by separation any adhesive faculty ; nor are the feelers of 

 that extensile nature or prehensile power belonging to those of the hydra 

 proper. Indeed, in their best and most vigorous state, their property is 

 rather adhesive than prehensile, in regard to other objects. 



Meantime, the florid summit of the vacant stalk is fading ; a kind of 

 cicatrix closes the wound. But on the lapse of a certain interval, it 

 darkens again ; an internal bud is advancing, which speedily ascending, 

 bursts a transparent involucrum, and flourishes as a new head, precisely 

 from the same point whence its precursor had fallen, and of equally vivid 

 hue. 



Singular, to be told, the regenerative faculty is not exhausted here ; 

 for, after subsisting an indefinite time, this second head droops and dies, 

 and is dissolved on its fall. Then it is replaced by a third, and the third 

 by a successor. How often the like may be repeated — how many succes- 

 sive heads may be generated anew, throughout the whole life of the zoo- 

 phyte, cannot be readily ascertained, and that for various reasons. 



All marine productions dislodged from considerable depths are liable 

 to the greatest injury. Though casually obtained clean and entire, most 

 of them are profusely invested by parasites, which, fatally and invisibly 

 wounded, speedily corrupt the circumambient fluid in their decay. Even 



