CORALS AND CORAL MAKERS. 17 



ing experiment. With a razor I took shavings of the cuticle 

 from the callous part of my own foot. One of these shavings 

 I presented to the tentacles of a fully-expanded Tealia crassi- 

 cornis {Urlicina crassicornis of Europe and America). After 

 contact, and momentary adhesion, I withdrew the cuticle, and 

 examined it under a power of 600 diameters. I found, as 1 

 had expected, cnidce standing up endwise, the wires in every 

 case shot into the substance. They were not numerous — in a 

 space of -Qi inch square, I counted about a dozen. . . . 



" These examples prove that the slightest contact with the 

 proper organs of the Anemone is sufficient to provoke the dis- 

 charge of the cnidcE; and that even the densest condition of 

 the human skin offers no impediment to the penetration of the 

 cct/iorcea. 



"As to the injection of a poison, it is indubitable that pain, 

 and in some cases death, ensues even to vertebrate animals 

 from momentary contact with the capsuliferous organs of the 

 Zoophyta. ... I have elsewhere recorded an instance in 

 which a little fish, swimming about in health and vigour, died 

 in a few minutes with great agony through the momentary con- 

 tact of its lip with one of the emitted acontia of Sagai'tia para- 

 sitica. It is worthy of observation, that, in this case, the fish 

 carried away a portion of the acontium sticking to its lip ; the 

 force with which it adhered being so great, that the integrity of 

 the tissues yielded first. The acontium severed, rather than 

 let go its hold. 



" Now, in the experiments which I have detailed above, we 

 have seen that this adhesion is effected by the actual impene- 

 tration of the foreign body by a multitude of the ecthonea 

 whose barbs resist withdrawal. So that we can with certainty 

 associate the sudden and violent death of the little fish with 

 the intromission of barbed edhorcea!' 



The following observation by J. P. Couthouy, from the 

 author's Report on Zoophytes (p. 128), if it is beyond question, 

 shows power even in the Actinia's presence. " Having a 

 number of Monodontas (a genus of univalve Mollusca allied 

 to our Trochi) too much crowded in a large jar of water, 1 



c 



