% i Pm” 
452 Bibliography. 
: VL. Brstiocrapny. 
L ‘Rare and ‘Remarkable Animals of Scotland, peereenned from liv- 
ing Subjects, with practical observations on their ; by Sir Joun 
anAM Danyeut, Bart. Volume first, canals fifty- -three colored 
plates. London: John Van Voorst, Paternoster ir 1847. Ato, 
pP- 270, (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ii Ser., i, 311, 1848. )—The. most 
interesting chapter in this interesting volume is that which narrates the 
history of the Hydra tuba. This marine animal is called a Hydra by 
(p- 87), their proliferous evolution of young, their endurance of priva- 
tions, their power to recover from apparently immedicable wounds, 
and their strange germinations and monstrosities under the influence 
and direction of the experimentalist (p. 93). This hydra is found at- 
tached to submarine bodies; the body is fleshy, inversely conic cal, en- 
circled about the oral disc with a series of long slender thread-like, ten- 
tacles, L 
cising all the: functions of, a perfect and adult animal eve 
peated production of young in all respects alike the parent. ie it lives 
until, from some unknown causes, a change- comes over it, and it be- 
gins to unveil itself, and to exhibit one of the most osetia revela- 
tions in animal transmutations. A pendulous column or roll is observ- 
til re thy are obliterated is aor then each roll of the soliiers is succes 
sively separated and liberated from the others until the whole embry- 
onie column is dissolved, the individual rolls floating at freedom in the 
of the waters, obviously the young of one of those large Medusee 
which swarm our seas in the months.of the latter, summer and autumn ! 
ng ts 
der. r, ase ce cast off severa iikieows exis a basis re- 
mains out of which another pies tuba shall arise, to go through the 
same hn life and the same medusean metamo orphoses as its prede- 
cessor. e su that these facts—for facts they are—will not sup- 
“port thasopinions of Steenstrup on alternating generations, nor can 
even be reconciled with them 
aero in — Sir Jon: discovered that the Hydra tuba was the 
. yoofa usa was this: he took a large Medusa, of ager 
mined species rs beautifully figured on a 15, and placing it 
uae 
