THE COASTS OF SICILY. 219 



not the less real because they are not always self- 

 evident ? Still more, what can we say of men who, 

 in the face of these and a thousand other equally 

 significant facts which have been established by 

 modern science, still maintain that true zoology rests 

 exclusively on such principles ? 



In reflecting on the singular mode of propagation 

 presented by the Syllis and the Myriana, one is led 

 to ask a question which, at first sight, may appear 

 sufficiently strange. Have the primary individuals 

 any distinct sex ? To this query we must reply, 

 Evidently not ; for they are neither males nor females, 

 none of them in reality playing the part either of 

 fathers or mothers ; they neither impregnate nor are 

 impregnated. Acting all in the same manner, and 

 as stems, giving off buds, they all equally give birth 

 to secondary individuals. It is only in the latter 

 that the sexual characteristics become apparent, and 

 that we are enabled to observe the development of 

 ova and of the liquid which is to fecundate these 

 germs of a new generation. The young which are 

 developed from these ova do not, however, exhibit the 

 characteristics of their immediate progenitors, but 

 they resemble the primary individuals. Thus, for 

 instance, in the animals of which we are speak- 

 ing, the offspring never presents the character- 

 istics of its father or mother.* But there are still 



* The Danish naturalist, Steenstrup, has published a very in- 

 teresting work on the Alternations of Generation. He has united 

 and grouped together all the facts -which present any analogy with 

 the one to which I have already referred, and from these he deduces a 

 general theory. According to him, the kind of alternation of which 



