284 THE AQUARIAN NATURALIST, 



The present species, in common with the pre- 

 ceding, is endowed with an extraordinary capability 

 of reproducing parts of its body, whereof it may be 

 deprived by violence, or which may be consumed by 

 disease, so that each mutilated animal again becomes 

 perfect. The plume is liable to gradual loss of its 

 peculiar parts, the body is subject to deprivation of 

 its plume, and yet the whole is reproduced in full 

 and luxuriant perfection. 



An observation made by Sir J. Dalyell affords 

 satisfactory proof of this phenomenon, remarkable at 

 any time, but more especially in animals so elaborate 

 in structure as the creatures of which we are now 

 speaking. 



A specimen which had been recently obtained lost 

 its plume completely on the 5th of April, and the 

 separated portion, an inch in length, lay at the 

 bottom of the vessel. In twenty-six hours the trunk 

 of the body was invested with a delicate silken sheath. 

 In fifteen days the rudiments of a regenerating plume 

 arose from the fore part of the trunk in the form of 

 several delicate shoots an eighth of an inch long ; 

 these soon became clothed with incipient fringes, and 

 in twenty-three days from the date of mutilation the 

 branchiae had attained a third of the dimensions of 

 those they were replacing (PI. V. fig. 8, a, b, c) . 



In prosecuting this subject, about five lines, or a 

 fourth of the body, was broken off, during an attempt 

 to dislodge a specimen from its sheath. The wounds 

 thus inflicted upon each portion healed speedily. 

 Ninety-two days after this occurrence, a new plume 

 was visibly apparent, sprouting from the upper portion 



