SEA ANEMONES. 205 



case of Actinia aillet. Wishing to detach this anemone from the 

 aquarium, this gentleman used every effort to effect his purpose ; but 

 only succeeded, after violent exertions, in tearing the lower part of 

 the animal. Six portions remained attached to the glass walls of the 

 aquarium. At the end of eight days, attempts were again made to 

 detach these fragments ; but it was observed, with much surprise, 

 that they shrank from the touch, and contracted themselves. Each 

 of them soon became crowned with a little row of tentacula, and 

 finally each fragment became a new anemone. Every part of these 

 strange creatures thus becomes a separate being when detached, 

 while the mutilated parent continues to live as if nothing had 

 happened. It has long been known that the sea anemones may be 

 cut limb from limb, mutilated, divided, and subdivided. One part 

 of the body cut off is quickly replaced. Cut off the tentacles of an 

 actinia, and they are replaced in a short time, and the experiment 

 may be repeated indefinitely. The experiments made by M. 

 Trembley of Geneva upon the fresh-water hydra were repeated by 

 the Abbe Dicquemare on the sea anemones. He mutilated and 

 tormented them in a hundred ways. The parts cut off continued to 

 live, and the mutilated creature had the power of reproducing the 

 parts of which it had been deprived. To those who accused the 

 abbe of cruelty in thus torturing the poor creatures, he replied that, 

 so far from being a cause of suffering to them, " he had increased 

 their term of hfe, and renewed their youth." 



The Actiniad(je vary in their habitat from pools near low-water 

 mark to eighteen or twenty fathoms water, whence they have been 

 dredged up. " They adhere," says Dr. Johnston, " to rocks, shells, 

 and other extraneous bodies by means of a glutinous secretion from 

 their enlarged base, but they can leave their hold and remove to 

 another station whensoever it pleases them, either by gliding along 

 with a slow and almost imperceptible movement (half an inch in five 

 minutes), as is their usual method, or by reversing the body and 

 using the tentacula for the purpose of feet, as Reaumur asserts, and 

 as I have once witnessed ; or, lastly, inflating the body with water, 

 so as to render it more buoyant, they detach themselves, and are 

 driven to a distance by the random motion of the waves. They feed 

 on shrimps, small crabs, whelks, and on ver)' many species of shelled 

 mollusca, and probably on all animals brought -vvithin their reach 

 whose strength or agility is insufficient to extricate them from the 

 grasp of their numerous tentacula ; for as these organs can be turned 

 about in any direction, and greatly lengthened, they are capable of 

 being applied to every point, and adhere by suction with considerable 



