222 AMPHITRITE. 
weaker part. Less injury is received from nets or lines than when ob- 
tained by dredging. 
Tubes of an inch or two are often found on corallines. Here, as in 
others, the inhabitant is short in proportion, not occupying above a 
third of the whole. Those of smaller size, that is, rising from one inch 
to six, are readily procured entire with their contents. But the tenants 
of larger tubes are frequently mutilated, especially of the head. 
It is extremely difficult to dislodge them uninjured from the largest ; 
the usual expedient of vitiating the water seldom avails, as it requires to 
be so long protracted as to prove pernicious. Besides all, constraint or 
pressure is vain. Slittmmg up the tube might be supposed, of all expe- 
dients, the most effectual. Yet, from its extraordinary elasticity, as the 
sides are divided by the points of sharp scissors, to the great peril of its 
inmate, the edges singularly overlap each other more and more as the 
slit advances, thereby squeezing the animal harder and harder. Thus 
the tube twists in a spiral, or rolls up m such a manner as to obstruct 
observation entirely. 
The largest tubes are often profusely invested with irregular masses 
of the white Lobularia, an inch thick in some places, and, in others, as 
thin as paper. The former are to be cut through with sharp-pointed 
scissors, insinuated so as not to graze the surface of the tube, carefully avoid- 
ing contact with the Amphitrite, to which the smallest wound in many 
parts is fatal. The thinnest parts of the investing Lobularia may be rent 
asunder, and thereby the tenant liberated. 
Preserving large tubes entire is extremely inconvenient. Nor could 
the Amphitrite be kept alive without much difficulty did it remain un- 
injured, as the edifice, detached from its foundation, whence it rose erect, 
now falls flat in the vessel. A very simple expedient, however, rectifies 
the evil. By removing a small portion of the lower extremity of the 
tube, and allowing it to remain undisturbed in a vessel of sea-water, 
either lying flat on the side, or sustained by a thread from above, while 
the lower part touches the bottom, it will be found affixed there a few 
days afterwards. It then gradually rises erect from whatever may be 
the position, and the animal resumes its functions. 
