214 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



preparing food, but only of their power of chemically digest- 

 ing it. I doubted, in short, whether they should not be 

 separated from the more complex animals which digest, and 

 whether they should not rank in M. Bernard's second class. 

 We do not call a hut or group of cottages a city. A¥e do 

 not speak of its commerce, its government, its literature ; 

 these are social functions developed in a complex city, not 

 possible in a group of cottages. In the same way we should 

 not expect to find Digestion, Kespiration, Sensation, or 

 any other complex function, in animals so simple as a Sea 

 Anemone. Nor could the notion ever have gained currency, 

 had there been the projjer precision in our zoological lan- 

 guage, and had not the " fallacy of observation " misled us. 



Now to the experiments. The first point to be settled 

 was this : Have the Polypes anything of the nature of a 

 solvent fluid secreted by their stomachs ? " It is obvious," 

 says Dr Carpenter, the latest -writer on this subject, " that 

 a powerfully solvent fluid is secreted from the walls of the 

 gastric cavity ; for the soft parts of the food which is drawn 

 into it are gradually dissolved, and this without the assist- 

 ance of any mechanical trituration." Obvious, indeed, the 

 fact seems, until it is interrogated a little more closely, and 

 then we find, 1st, that no solvent fluid is secreted ; 2d, that 

 the food is not dissolved, but only the juices pressed out. 



My first experiment was to test the presence or absence 

 of a secretion, wliich was accomplished thus : Tying a 

 narrow strip of litmus-paper round a small piece of recently 

 caught fish, and fastening it to a thread, I gave it to an 

 Anthea cereus who greedily swallowed it ; another thin 



