FRAGMENTS BECOMING ANIMALS. 173 



Actinia, with a single row of beautiful long tentacles. From 

 the foot of this small Actinia he cut two other exceedingly 

 minute slips, which also became Actinias ; and from the foot 

 of the original Actinia he also separated, at various times, 

 fourteen other slips, all of which became developed as the first. 

 The author stated that this case of gemmiparous increase 

 was an instance of the development of a perfect and very- 

 complicated organism, from a minute fragment of one simi- 

 lar to itself, all that was essential to the process being appar- 

 ently the existence of a portion of each of the three elemental 

 tissues of the original, the dermal, the muscular, and the 

 mucous tissue, — the last being represented by the lining 

 membrane of the general cavity. And it appeared to be 

 analogous to the instance of gemmation from the water-vas- 

 cular system observed by the late Professor Edward Forbes 

 iu Sarsia prolifera, in which animal the young medusas 

 pullulated forth from the hollow bulbs which supported the 

 tentacles." 



It should be borne in mind, however, that the Actinise are 

 far less capable of reproduction from fragments than the 

 fresh-water Polypes are. Delle Chiaje, indeed, emphati- 

 cally denies that they can do more than reproduce their ten- 

 tacles* This, as we have just seen, is not the case ; and 

 it is somewhat curious that Delle Chiaje should confine the 

 reproductive power to the tentacles, when we remember that, 

 according to Owen, the tentacles are the only portions of the 



* Delle Chiaje : Descrizione e notomia degli anhnali inverteb. della Sicilia, 

 iv. p. 130. 



