16 
probable objects of interest that may soon present themselves. One 
of the first may probably be the multiplication of the Actinide. 
This process takes place in three ways, by gemmation most com- 
monly, especially in Actinia mesembryanthemum, sometimes as many 
as thirty tiny well-formed anemones being ejected from the oral 
opening of the parent at atime. Again, buds may be given off 
from the sides, as in Sargartia bellis. Multiplication takes place by 
fission, as may be observed in the plumose anemone (Actinolobus 
dianthui), which often slides, like a snail, along the glass front of 
your aquarium, leaving in its trail little pieces of its basal dise, 
which ultimately become young anemones; or /ission may take place 
bodily, as in Anthea cereus, which often divides into two or more 
parts by a gradually depending sulcus, which, forming from crown 
to base, results in the establishment of two or more of these ane- 
mones where only one existed. But the third and rarest form of 
multiplication consists in the ejection of ova, and this I was 
fortunate enough to witness in my aquarium. It occurred in a 
specimen of Bunodes gemmacea, which had taken up a favourable 
position close to the glass. I was attracted to it by observing a 
drab-coloured stream of ova pouring from its mouth and falling in a 
heap at its feet; upon more elosely examining the creature with a 
pocket lens I found it distended with water, and the tentacles 
especially so, while globular bodies were circulating up and down 
the interior of them, but did not pass out of their extremities. I 
examined some of these bodies under the microscope and found 
them opaque and non-ciliated spheres filled with granular contents. 
I had hoped to have seen the development of these ova into the 
adult form, but, as in Mr. Gosse’s experience of similar ova, decom- 
position set in. Dr. Spencer Cobbold was more fortunate, and in 
Annals of Natural History for February, 1853, he describes the 
various changes through which these ova at last arrive at their final 
shape. A depression takes place in the surface of the globose 
embryo, which becomes the general cavity, the edges become in- 
curved and descend into the cavity, forming the stomach; septa 
spring from the inner wall beginning from the summit and extend- 
ing downwards, and tentacles bud from around the mouth. He 
made these observations at a continuous sitting, occupying the 
whole of one night, before decomposition had commenced its attack 
upon them. I once saw the ejection of ova by a serpula; noticing 
occasional bursts of cloudy matter from the centre of its plumose 
branchie, I collected some of it by the dipping tube, and found it 
consisted of an immense number of minute orange-coloured globules, 
each enveloped in a clear sac of a probably albuminous nature. I 
was not fortunate enough to trace out the development of these ova, 
but I shall hope to do so at'some future time by means of a method 
I have the last few months adopted. I place ordinary microscopical 
slips of glass in various parts of my aquarium, and especially near 
a 
