464 - PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1773. 



whether any glutinous matter should remain on them ; but he never perceived 

 any; and by applying the fingers of that hand to the other, he perceived no ad- 

 hesion. Mr. D. afterwards, for some days, clipped several anemonies of the 

 first species, diametrically and perpendicularly to the basis. They stood the ope- 

 ration extremely well. Time will teach us what the result of these operations 

 will be. 



These animals can live a whole year, and perhaps much longer, without any 

 other food than what they chance to find disseminated in the sea-water. They 

 do not want many motions to procure their food, besides stretching out their 

 limbs, to receive such as comes within their reach; and they remain surrounded 

 with muscles, &c. without laying hold of any of them. He has given ane- 

 monies some of these muscles alive, but with their shells closed, and about six 

 lines in length. They were swallowed in that state; and 40, 50, and 6o hours 

 after, the shells were thrown up at the mouth, empty and perfectly cleared, even 

 from the small tendons which connect the fish to its shells. The anemonies 

 swallow and digest small fish, and bits of larger fish, or of raw meat, when of- 

 fered to them. When they cannot digest some of the food, they throw it up at 

 the mouth, either whole or partly dissolved into a viscous liquor, which may in 

 some measure be considered as their excrements. They void by the same way, 

 and in the same manner, various parts of a white and brown substance, and small 

 bodies are thrown out at the extremity of the limbs, and more sensibly in the 2d 

 species. There also oozes out of their body a sort of excrementitious matter, 

 which by coagulating produces round them a sort of girdle. 



These animals are known to be viviparous. Several of them have brought 

 forth, even in Mr. D.'s hand, 8, 10, and 12 young ones. Some, though almost 

 imperceptible, as in fig. 8, have even the power of clinging, and are endowed 

 with 2 rows of limbs, which they open immediately on their birth, in order to 

 catch their prey, which they swallow afterwards. He has kept some for 10 

 months. They have appeared not to have increased in their bulk more than 

 twice the diameter of their size. Indeed he fed them sparingly, the others grew 

 as large as' half a green pea. Fig. Q. 



The sea anemonies have a progressive motion ; which, though slow, is per- 

 formed in every direction, with a degree of facility, and efl:ected by means of 

 muscles which cross each other at right angles. Mr. D. cannot as yet display 

 the mechanism of these muscles, because the last mutilations he was obliged to 

 make discompose the conjectures that some learned men have published on this 

 subject; and he had not sufficiently fixed his thoughts in consequence of his ob- 

 servations. 



The 2d species of sea-anemonies keeps itself hid more than the 1st, it is not 

 to be come at but in neap tides, when the sea recedes farthest, and cannot be 



