34 Life and Love. 



water of the body-cavity of the parent before it 

 finally finds its way out at o into the ocean. There 

 its free life soon ends, it settles down on a rock and 

 assumes the monotonous life of an adult ascidian. 



The egg, by union with the sperm-cell, has 

 gained power to develop ; it has been " fertilized," 

 or rendered able to produce the parent form. 



The sperm-cell, too, by union with the egg-cell, 

 is saved from perishing; it is enabled to express 

 the characteristics of the creature from which it 

 was budded in the new creature which springs 

 from the egg it has fertilized. 



In our ascidian, as well as in many other low 

 forms of life the two kinds of cells are both budded 

 off by the same individual, which thus contains 

 both male and female elements. Such a creature, 

 uniting as it does the two sexes in one, is called a 

 hermaphrodite. 



In some cases, however, even among low forms 

 of life, one individual gives rise to but one kind of 

 reproductive material, another separate individual 

 supplying the other kind. 



The sexes are thus separate, the egg-cells being 

 produced by the female, the sperm-cells by the 

 male. 



In those low forms of life where the eggs of the 

 female and the sperm-cells of the male are cast 

 forth into the water, they float about until they 

 find each other, or failing in this, die, — a very 

 wasteful and precarious method of reproduction. 



