242 SUICIDE OF HOLOTHUEI.«:. 



ward, close to the body ; and perfectly clean, ■without 

 laceration, and without any perceptible flow of liquid. 



I carefully slit up with scissors one of the separated 

 rays, and found within it the bulbs of the numerous 

 suckers, of course, and the two caca of the intestine, 

 beautifully arborescent, and of a yellowish-olive 

 colour; so that in the voluntary throwing off of a 

 limb, these digestive organs are not absorbed or con- 

 tracted into the body, but cast off also. 



The Starfish continued to walk about, like a Chel- 

 sea pensioner, on his one leg, till the afternoon of 

 this second day, when the remaining limb dropped off 

 by its own weight, on my lifting the animal from one 

 vessel to another. I took great care of the body, 

 hoping that it might reproduce the lost limbs while in 

 my possession; but I was disappointed. It never 

 moved after this last amputation, and putrefaction 

 soon made it too manifest that death had ensued. 



The Holothurim, or Sea-Cucumbers, those members 

 of the Class Echinodermata, which, to the locomotive 

 suckers and other essential organs of the Starfishes 

 and Sea-urchins, conjoin some peculiarities, such as 

 the elongate form, and a circle of oral tentacula, 

 which are considered to approximate them to the 

 Worms C Annelida J , or, perhaps more truly, to the 

 ActinisB, — usually commit suicide in a different man- 

 ner. According to the concurrent testimony of 

 observers, they frequently disgorge from the mouth, 

 the stomach, intestines, and ovary, " leaving the body 

 an empty sac ;" and occasionally throwing off even 

 the tentacles, the mouth, and the dental cylinder. 

 But some species of these are said to " divide spoo- 



