284 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



vigour, and likely to survive, the actinia must be judged a 

 long-lived animal." 



On reproduction he adds, this species is a genuine her- 

 maphrodite, and also viviparous. It produces its young 

 by the mouth. The body of the parent is then greatly 

 compressed, and to judge by appearances, it suffers in 

 genuine labour. As the half-digested food is disgorged by 

 the mouth — not without an effort — we may presume that 

 in consequence, the young are sometimes disgorged along 

 with it. The specimen having had a copious meal of an 

 embryo skate, taken from the capsule, retained the food 

 during twenty-four hours, when it was rejected, together with 

 a numerous brood of thirty-eight young actiniae, some of them 

 very large. The period of gestation is long, and apparently 

 arbitrary. Embryos have appeared in the tentacula five 

 months preceding birth ; and eight months have intervened 

 between the production of successive broods. 



The vessel containing the specimen having been emptied 

 on May 23d, it was replenished within an hour. Then 

 the actinia contracted partly, the tentacula dwindled down, 

 and the mouth projected considerably from the circum- 

 scribed disc. Thus did the specimen appear soon after 

 replenishment. Now a large foetus was observed within the 

 orifice ; it advanced slowly, but none of the tentacula were 

 visible ; there seemed to be some adhesion of the side, whereon 

 it lay in horizontal position, not by the base. As the young 

 animal was farther advanced, it turned round, but still lay on 

 the side. Four tentacula appeared, next another, and when 

 still on the margin of the orifice, five could be enumerated. 

 It was gradually detached, and having at length hung by a 

 single tentaculum, dropped to the bottom of the vessel on its 

 base. The nascent actinia fixed there almost immediately, 

 and the complement of tentacula seemed, in a few minutes, 

 to be eighteen. It was of large dimensions, and of a dull 

 reddish colour. Parturition here occupied fifteen or twenty 

 minutes. 



A tip of a gravid tentaculum was excised from the same 

 specimen on July 25th, and put into a watch-glass with sea- 

 water ; and next day a foetus was expelled from it. It adhered 



