102 



THE MUSEUM. 



those of persons having a deHcate 

 skin. But certainly no such charge 

 has ever been brought against our 

 native species. 



The Fringed-anemone makes a very 

 pleasant pet in confinement, aud if al- 

 lowed plenty of room and fresh sea 

 water, will e.xpand almost constantly. 

 It feeds readily upon the flesh of all 

 sorts of shell fish &c. , and will not 

 refush bits of raw beef, and if necessi- 

 ty compels, it will live for months and 

 even a year without food; but curious- 

 ly enough it will continually grow 

 smaller and smaller, so that a speci- 

 men at first five or six inches high and 

 two in diameter, may thus be reduced 

 to the height of an inch and the di- 

 ameter of less than half an inch, the 

 numbers of tentacles and chambers 

 being proportionately reduced. In fact, 

 under such circumstances, the animal 

 seems to undergo a retrograde process, 

 exactly the reverse of that by which it 

 originally developed from youth to 

 maturity. 



The ovaries of Actinias, and all 

 similar animals including the coral- 

 polyps, are attached to the inner edges 

 of the radiating partitions below the 

 scomach and are filled with immense 

 numbers of eggs, which are discharged 

 when mature directly into the fiuid 

 filling the body, and then are either 

 discharged very soon from the mouth, 

 or are retained for a longer or shorter 

 time until they are hatched into mina- 

 ture Actinias, which are discharged in 

 different stages of development and cf 

 various sizes; but however small they 

 may be, they are perfectly competent 

 to take care of themselves from the 

 start. The Fringed-anemone, and 

 some other kinds when they remove 

 from places where they have long been 

 stationary are liable to tetr off and 

 leave behind them little fragments 

 from the edge of the base, but every 

 one of these fragments will in a few 

 days develope a little mouth and a 

 row of tentacles around it and will 

 soon become a perfect little Actinia, 

 differing only in size from the parent. 



The same effect may be (jbtained at 

 will by cutting off little portions from 

 the edge of the base with a sharp 

 knife. This process is evidently ana- 

 logous to the wonderful powers of res- 

 toration and development of mutilated 

 and lost parts, .'^o well known by ex- 

 periments upon the fresh water Hydra 

 and other low animals, some of which 

 may be cut up in every direction into 

 many pieces, and each part will still 

 restore all the parts that are lacking. 

 It has, also, some analogy to the pro- 

 cess of budding so common among the 

 coral-polyps. 



(To be concluded in June number.) 



Galapagos Islands. 



Part of a letter recently received 

 from "Mr. F. P. Drowne, who was a 

 member of the Rothchild Expedition: 



The Galapagos islands, which were 

 visited by our party, are about Goo- 

 miles west of Ecuador, and lie nearly 

 on the equator, the extreme islands 

 being about lOO miles north and loo 

 miles south of the line. They are of 

 volcanic origin and volcanic action has 

 been so recent that a large portion of 

 the islands consists of barren low 

 fields. 



Vegetation is limited and little is 

 found of a really tropical nature ex- 

 cept on the tops of some of the peaks, 

 the tallest of which reach an altitude 

 of some 4000 feet. The lowlands are 

 covered, in places, with a thick growth 

 of cacti and dry brush, which, com- 

 bined with the rough walkuig over 

 lava, made collecting difficult 



With such a limited vegetation one 

 cannot expect to find a very large as- 

 sortment of birds nor did we. The 

 land birds with a few exceptions were 

 plainly colored, belonging principally 

 to the families Gcospi::a\ Camai- 

 hyncli, Miviida-, and Pyrocep/iali, the 

 members of each family differing from 

 one another chiefly in measurements 

 of bill and tarsus. 



The lameness of the large sea birds 

 (boobys, albatross, frigate birds, etc , 



