4 1 Mr. P. H. Gosse on JEgeon Alfordi. 



rium. In the first place, it possesses a wonderful tenacity of 

 life, as the following facts will show. On the 4th of April, 

 Mr. Alford enclosed the specimen in a small canister, and sent 

 it to me by post. On the 12th, an ample missive under the 

 great seal of the General Post Office informed me that a package 

 addressed to me was detained by the postmaster at Plymouth, 

 on account of the exudation of water, according to statute in 

 that case made and provided. Hope pretty nearly died within 

 me; but I wrote to a friend at Plymouth, who kindly obtained 

 the offending package, gave the prisoner a twenty-four hours' 

 bath, and then re-posted him on to me. On the evening of the 

 17th I turned him out, and, before night, had the pleasure of 

 seeing him adhering, and expanding in all his beauty, none the 

 worse for his fortnight's captivity. 



From that day to this (June 10) he has luxuriated in a little 

 cylindrical vase of sea-water, always displaying his full glories 

 in the most ungrudging manner. He is always ready for dinner, 

 and swallows large lumps of raw meat with a very vigorous 

 appetite. The liveliness and versatility of his movements greatly 

 augment the interest which attaches to him as a tenant of the 

 tank. Mr. Alford' s first evening's impressions of his character 

 — " I have had him close beside me all this evening, and he has 

 never been alike in shape or size for two minutes together" — • 

 have been justified by my more lengthened experience. 



At present the specimen remains unique; but my friend is on 

 the qui vive *, and we may hope that more examples may soon 

 be discovered among the sea-beaten rocks of those rocky outposts 

 of England. 



As it devolved on me to give the illustrious stranger a pair of 

 names, I have borrowed one from a hundred-armed hero of 

 antiquity — 



"iEgeon qualis, centum cui brachia dicunt, 

 Centenasque manus "f ; 



and the other from the fortunate discoverer. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE VII. 



JEgeon Alfordi, of the natural size, in its ordinary state of distention. 



* I will add an interesting fact from a letter of Mr. Alford's : — " The 

 great abundance of Aiptasia seems the most marked feature of these 

 islands, as far as Anemones are concerned. Other species and varieties 

 are well represented; but amongst the rocks in Porth Crassa Bay, at the 

 back of my house, the Aiptasia are innumerable— far more common than 

 Actinia mesembryanthemum." 



f Virg. ^Eneid. x. 565. 



