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. Slitting 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 in 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. 



