20 OCEAN LIFE. 



duct and dispersed around, where they soon attach themselves, 

 and constitute a colony around their parent. The young while 

 in the body of the parent, are not unfrequently found in the 

 hollow tentacles which communicate freely with the interseptal 

 chambers ; and Sir John Dalyell thought this was their normal 

 position. He says ' in the course of six years, a specimen pre- 

 served by the author produced above two hundred and seventy- 

 six young ; some pale and like mere specks, with only eight ten- 

 tacula ; others florid and with twenty. They are frequently dis- 

 gorged along with the half digested food ; thirty-eight appearing 

 thus at a single litter.' The abbe Dicquemare relates several 

 curious experiments on the multiplication of these animals by 

 mechanical division. When transversely divided, the upper por- 

 tion still stretched out its tentacles in search for food, which, 

 when seized, sometimes passed through its mutilated body, but 

 was occasionaly retained and digested. In about two months, 

 tentacles grew from the cut extremity of the other portion, 

 which soon afterwards began to seize prey. By similar sections, 

 he even succeeded in making an animal with a mouth at each 

 end. 



" It is in seizing and devouring their prey however, that the 

 habits of the Actinice are best exemplified. They will remain 

 for hours with their arms fully expanded and motionless, waiting 

 for some passing animal which chance may place at their disposal, 

 and when the opportunity arrives, are little inferior to the Hydrae 

 in their voracity or powers of destroying their victims. Their 

 food generally consists of crabs or shell-fish, animals apparently 

 far superior to themselves in strength and activity, but even 

 these are easily overpowered by the sluggish yet persevering 

 grasp of their assailant. No sooner are the tentacles touched 

 by a passing animal, than it is seized and held with unfailing 

 pertinacity : the arms gradually close around it ; the mouth 

 placed in the centre of the disc, expands to an extraordinary 

 size ; and the creature is soon engulphed in the digestive bag of 

 the Actiniae, where the solution of all its soft parts is rapidly 

 effected, and the hard, indigestible remnants speedily cast out 

 at the same orifice. The Actiniae, although exceedingly voracious, 

 will bear long fasting. They may be preserved alive for a whole 



