VITALITY OF THE SEA-ANEMONE. 119 



serve also as admirable weapons of defence, and many a rapacious 

 Eolide that would willingly have feasted upon a Sea-anemone is 

 repelled by the acrid properties of its urticating tentacles. 



But even when in the power of an enemy, who does not 

 fear the poison of its sting, the Sea-anemone frequently owes 

 its preservation to its uncommon tenacity of life. Dip it into 

 water warm enough to raise blisters on the skin, or expose it 

 to the frost of winter, or place it under the exhausted bell of 

 an air-pump, and its powerful vital principle will triumph over 

 all these ordeals. Cut off the tentacles, and new ones sprout 

 forth ; nay, divide the animal in two, and, like the Lernsean 

 hydra, it will produce a reduplication of itself. Possessing such 

 wonderful powers of reproduction, the Sea-anemone may thus 

 be cruelly maimed or torn by tooth or claw, and yet repair its 

 losses and survive. 



When desirous to wander, the Sea-anemones have several modes 

 of locomotion. Relaxing the tenacious grasp of their muscular 

 stalk, they glide slowly along ; or, turning themselves upside 

 down, they make use of their tentacles as feet ; or, inflating their 

 body with water, they diminish its specific weight, and allow 

 themselves to be drifted along by the current, until, tired of 

 exercise, they again fix themselves to some convenient spot. 



The Actinias can neither hear nor see, for, as they are capable 

 of but slow progression, the possession of the higher senses 

 would have been of no use to avoid pursuit, or to capture a prey 

 which the sea brings to their mouth without the least exertion on 

 their part ; it would have been a torment, not a gift. The sense 

 of touch, which is principally concentrated in their tentacles, is 

 amply sufficient for the limited sphere of their existence; and thus 

 the organisation of the Actinia is as perfect in its way as that 

 of any of the higher animals, for each part and each faculty har- 

 monises with the whole, nor can we doubt that, where this har- 

 mony exists, even the humblest life has its share of enjoyment. 



In spite of their numbers and their wide dispersion over the 

 seas, the simple or solitary Actinias form but a small part of 

 the world of polyps, which chiefly consist of aggregated or 

 compound animals, attached to one another by lateral append- 

 ages, or by their posterior extremity, and participatiDg in a 

 common life, while at the same time each member of the family 

 enjoys its independent and individual existence. But few of 



