244 THE AQUARIAN NATURALIST. 



themselves on being touched, and the empty skin 

 appeared by its motions to have lost little of its irri- 

 tability." 



Lost little of its irritability, forsooth! Had Dr. 

 Johnston only waited long enough, he would have 

 found that the animal was all the better for the gentle 

 depletion, and having got rid of such troublesome 

 trifles as its old viscera, was quite ready to begin the 

 world again with a new set ! 



" The times have been 



That when the brains were out the man would die, 



And there an end !" 



Not so, however, with our Holothuria. We have 

 at this moment before us, in a jar of spirits of wine, 

 wherein they have been quietly inurned during the 

 last six months, the entire inside of one of these crea- 

 tures mouth, tentacles, alimentary canal, respiratory 

 tree, ovarian tubes and all and yet, in yonder tank, 

 the animal itself, to which they once belonged, is 

 creeping leisurely about his mimic rockery, apparently 

 as well and active as if they still formed an integrant 

 part of his economy, and brandishing a new set of 

 tentacula quite as complete as their predecessors. 



At the meeting of the British Association in Glas- 

 gow, Sir J. G. Dalyell first stated that he had wit- 

 nessed in a Holothuria this wonderful power of repro- 

 ducing, not only trifling portions of its body, but 

 absolutely all its viscera. I have observed, says Sir 

 John, the tentacula with the cylinder (dental circle), 

 mouth, oesophagus, lower intestinal parts, and the 

 ovarium separating within, and leaving the body an 

 empty sac behind. Yet it does not perish. In three 



