140 REPORT—1840. 
parts. A single Holothuria has produced 5000 ova in the course of 
anight. The young resembles a white maggot, when of the size of a 
barley corn. The animal may lose and regenerate its organs more 
than once ; it is very rarely to be procured entire ; nor until the draw- 
ings now laid before the Association, has it been ever represented 
alive and perfect. The specimen survived with Sir John about two 
years. 
‘The Amphitrite is an animal still more interesting, from the faculties 
it possesses and the properties which it enjoys. Various species inhabit 
the Scottish seas, all occupying tubes, either of their own manufacture, 
by a process truly mechanical, or a thin silken sheath formed by an 
exudation from the whole body, or they rest amidst a thick tubular 
mass of transparent jelly, also of animal secretion. The body of the 
Amphitrite ventilabrum extends twelve inches or more in a serpentine 
form, consisting of 350 segments, crowned by a beautiful varied- 
coloured plume of eighty or ninety fleshy feathers, and terminated by a 
double gland. These (the branchie) are arranged as a funnel or shut- 
tlecock, three inches deep, and resembling the finest flower, with two 
spines in the centre, and each feather is bordered by at least 500 ciliz 
or fleshy hairs along the shaft. This, which is the most timorous of 
creatures, dwells in a black leathern-looking perpendicular tube, two 
feet high, entirely of its own manufacture, rooted by the lower 
extremity. The observer possesses the ready means of inducing 
the humble tenant to display its powers. If, while stretching its 
beautiful plume above the orifice of the tube, and spreading 
it to enjoy the circumambient element, he drops a little muddy 
matter from above, an interesting spectacle ensues: immediately all 
the feathered apparatus is seen in action, though the animal be ap- 
parently still. Forty thousand ciliz are at work, and a mass is soon 
discovered accumulating at the bottom of the funnel. Being thence 
transmitted to the mouth, it is imbued with gluten, and discharged as 
paste on the edge of the orifice of the tube. There the creature 
having raised itself still higher, performs a slow revolution while 
moulding the paste into proper form by means of two organic trowels, 
prolonged from a fringe around the neck. With these it beats down the 
paste, and clasping over the edge of the tube, smooths its materials 
into symmetry, as if it were by the operation of huinan hands; but on 
the slightest alarm the plume collapses, the artist sinks below in an 
instant, and remains with the orifice closed, until believing the danger 
over, it may rise to resume its task in securify. As specimens occur 
of all different dimensions, let the observer cut a fragment off the lower 
end of the tube, which is always longer than the tenant; it will be 
affixed again where desired. Treating a number thus, and tossing them 
into a glass jar of sea water, a grove will arise before him from the 
animals fixing them anew, and protruding like so many revolving 
flowers to collect muddy drops from above, with which he provides 
them. Theadhesion is accomplished from a glutinous or silky sheath, 
which the double terminal gland seems instrumental in producing. 
Should the Amphitrite be mutilated of the anterior part, the whole will 
