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and not by any poisonous fluid. He is somewhat exaggerated, however, in the statement of his opinion. "Nothing," he says, can escape their deadly touch. Every animated being that comes in slightest contact is instantly caught, retained, and mercilessly devoured." This is mere rhetoric: animals, even such as form their natural prey, constantly touch the tentacles-nay, are even caught, and yet escape. "Neither strength nor size, nor the resistance of the victim, can daunt the ravenous captor. It will readily grasp an animal which, if endowed with similar strength, advantage, and resolution, could certainly rend its body asunder. It is in the highest degree carnivorous. Thence do all the varieties of the smaller finny tribes, the fiercest of the crustacea, the whole vermicular race, and the softer tenants among the testacea, fall a prey to the Actiniæ." One is astonished to meet with such a passage from so accurate an observer. It is pure exaggeration, which succeeding writers have accepted as literal truth. Thus, Rymer Jones assures the student that "no sooner are the tentacles touched by a passing animal, than it is seized and held with unfailing pertinacity." Had the professor watched anemones he would know that, so far from the grasp being "unfailing," it as often fails as succeeds, when the captive is of tolerable activity; and very noticeable is the fact, that when the animals escape, they escape unhurt: a fact in direct contradiction to the belief in a poison secreted by the tentacles. On the 19th June 1856 I resolved to bring this question to the test, and dropped a tiny crab, rather smaller than a fourpenny piece, on the tentacles of my largest Crassicornis (nearly as large as a glass tumbler). He was clutched at once, and the tentacles began to close round him; he struggled vigorously, and freed himself after a few seconds. Placed there a second time, he again got away. I waited to see if any symptoms of paralysis would declare themselves after this contact, but he was as lively as ever. Later in the day I placed him on the tentacles of the voracious Anthea, the most powerful

of all the anemones, and the only one which seems to sting; but the crab was too active, or too little appetising: he got away as before. I tried another Anthea and a Daisy (Actinia _bellis), but with the same result. In each case the crab was clutched, but in each case he got away unhurt. I then chose another crab, not more than half the size of the former, and certainly no match in point of strength for the anemone, yet after being embraced and carried to the mouth, I observed the crab slowly appear from the unfolding tentacles, and scuttle away with great activity.

This experiment casts a doubt on what is asserted by all writers, namely, that anemones feed on crabs Rymer Jones actually recording that " they will devour a crab as large as a hen's egg." Has any one ever seen a live crab caught and eaten by an anemone? I confess never to have seen it, and the experiment just related disposes me to doubt: although it is quite possible that my anemones were dainty, because not hungry, and refused food which, under less epicurean conditions, would have been welcome. If any one has seen the anemone feeding on live crabs, it would be thus that my observation could be explained. Meanwhile I think it right to propound the doubt, and to add to it this subsequent observation made on the 3d of August: I took a tiny crustacean, of the shrimp family, about half an inch in length, and dropped it in a vase containing some Daisies. It soon touched the tentacles of one of these, was drawn in, but almost immediately escaped. It then swam about until it touched the largest Daisy, and was quickly engulfed. As it had entirely disappeared, I expected it would be certainly killed if not eaten, but in a few moments it made its way out unhurt, and swam away. These Daisies had not been fed for at least a fortnight; they had subsisted entirely on the invisible aliment floating in the water; yet they either could not, or would not, eat this crustacean.

On the question of food we may withhold our opinion till some more

decisive evidence is adduced; but on the question of the paralysing power said to reside in the tentacles, these experiments surely determine a negative. In spite of the beetle, so completely vanquished, there is the evidence of two crabs and a shrimp being in repeated contact with the tentacles, and in nowise affected.

While preparing these notes for the press, I have been led to extend the experiments; because, although it would by no means necessarily follow that whatever was true of the hydroid polypes must also be true of the anemones, yet a very plausible suspicion might arise and did in deed arise in my mind-throwing doubt on results which were in contradiction to what was reported of the fresh-water polypes. Read this passage from the last edition of Owen's Lectures, bearing the date 1855: "That the tentacula have the power of communicating some benumbing or noxious influence to the living animals which constitute the food of the hydra, is evident from the effect produced, for example, upon an entomostracan, which may have been touched, but not seized, by one of these organs. The little active crustacean is arrested in the midst of its rapid darting motion, and sinks apparently lifeless for some distance; then slowly recovers itself, and resumes its ordinary movements. Siebold states, that when a Naïs, a Daphnia, or the larva of a Cheironomus, have been wounded by the darts, they do not recover, but die. These and other active inhabitants of fresh waters, whose powers should be equivalent to rend asunder the delicate gelatinous arms of their low-organised captor, seem paralysed almost immediately after they have been seized, and so countenance the opinion of Corda, that the secretion of a poison enters the wounds." Such statements can only be set aside by direct experiment; and the superiority of experiment over mere observation needs no argument. As a matter of observation, I too had been struck with the fact noticed by Owen. I saw the tiny water-fleas drop apparently lifeless to the bottom of the phial, after being some

time held by the tentacle of the hydra; and after intently watching them, saw them at last swim away again lively as before. I removed a hydra from the phial, in a little water, and placing it on a slip of glass, allowed it to settle and expand there for two hours, when I added several water-fleas (Cypride) to the little pond, and patiently watched them swimming to and fro. Repeatedly they touched the tentacles in their course, but were not hurt, were not arrested. At length one was caught, and held for some seconds; it then fell to the bottom, and remained motionless for at least two minutes, after which it started up, and was off as if its course had never been arrested. Now came the test. With a needle I gently arrested one of these water-fleas; it suddenly sank motionless, remained thus for more than a minute, and then darted off again. Thrice I repeated this act, and each time with similar result. Will any one say the needle had a benumbing poison which was secreted when the animal came in contact with it? And does not the reader at once recognise in this sudden motionlessness of the animal a very familiar phenomenon? The spider, the crab, the oniscus, and very many animals "sham dead," as schoolboys know, when danger threatens ; these water-fleas "sham dead" when the polype or the needle touches them. I might have rested my incredulity of the alleged paralysing influence on this one experiment; but I confirmed it in other ways. Dropping the larva of an ephemeron into the phial containing my hydræ, I observed it thrice caught by three different hydræ; it did not " sham dead," but tore itself away without visible hurt. Nay, I also observed one of those animalcules known as

on observation unverified by experiment. Had I trusted to observation alone, I too should have believed the current opinion; it was only by verification, according to the demands of inductive scepticism, that the error became obvious.*

"But do tell us something about the habits and instincts of these anemones," some light-minded reader suggests, impatient of all discussion, and supremely indifferent to all considerations save those of a moral order. Unhappily my story is not ampler in detail, nor finer in complexity of movement, than the story of Canning's "Knife-grinder"-who had none to tell. The anemone is lovely, but even its warmest admirers must confess it is a little monotonous in its manifestations. Existence suffices it. It expands its coronal of tentacles, eats when chance favours it, produces offspring, which it sends forth, leaving it,

πολλοις διαύλοις κυματων φορούμενος, borne by the many currents of the sea, to settle where it lists, without any fear of parental supervision, and thus lives to a good old age, if no one nudges the elbow of Atropos, and causes that grim lady suddenly to cut the thread. The anemone has little more than beauty to recommend it; the indications of intelligence being of by no means a powerful order. What then? Is beauty nothing? Is it not the subtle charm which draws us from the side of the enlightened Miss Crosser to that of the lovely though "quite unintellectual" Caroline, whose conversation, indeed, is not of a novel or brilliant kind; whereas Miss Crosser has read

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a whole Encyclopædia, and is so obliging as to retail many pages of it freely in her conversation. Besides, if the monotony of the anemone wearies you, there is always this variety in reserve: you can eat it! The Italians do; they boil it in seawater with great satisfaction. Thus boiled, it has a shivering texture somewhat like calf's-foot jelly; the smell is somewhat like that of a warm crab or lobster," and it is eaten with savoury sauce. Mr Gosse describes his frying them in butter, if I remember rightly; and although he felt a little difficulty in swallowing the first mouthful-probably remorse and zoological tenderness gave him what the Italians call a knot in the throat"-yet, having vanquished his scruples, he ate with some relish. Lady Jane is "horrified" at the idea of eating her pets; but now that horse-flesh is publicly sold in the markets of Vienna and other German towns, and public banquets of hippophagists are frequent in France, will anemones escape the frying-pan?

It was hinted just now that the anemone was but an indifferent parent. Having given birth to her offspring, she spends no anxious hours over the episodes of infancy. When I say She, I might as well say He, or It, for no distinction of sex exists; and probably it is to this cause that the parental indifference may be traced; how can maternal tenderness and ceaseless vigilance be expected, when the maternal individual is as yet undeveloped? The Actinia are viviparous. Indeed I suspect they are only viviparous, and not at all oviparous. Rymer Jones

VOL. LXXXI.--NO. CCCCXCV.

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seems to hesitate on the point, adding, "but it is asserted by numerous authorities that the young are not unfrequently born alive." I not only assert this, but ask whether any one has ever seen the contrary. It startled me, however, when, on opening an anemone, I for the first time saw a young one drop out, and immediately expand its tentacles; and some days afterwards, as I was carrying home a lovely "gem," I saw first one, then two, three, four, seven young ones issue from its mouth, fix themselves at the bottom of the vase, and make themselves at home; they were of various sizes, and in various stages of development. Since then, I have repeatedly witnessed this mode of birth; and one day, seeing something in the inside of the tentacle of a Daisy, I snipped the tentacle off, and found a young daisy there. Some writers imagine that the young issue through the orifices at the tips of the tentacles -a supposition not very credible. The truth is, that at the bottom of the stomach there is a large opening -not several minute openings as we see figured in books-through which the young pass from the general cavity into the water; and this appears to me the only exit for the young. Without absolutely denying that the ova are extruded, and their early development carried on out of the parent's body, I have never been able to detect ova, except within the parent. The most curious of all my observations on this point was the finding in the visceral cavity of a smooth anemone a young one as large as a cherry; and to complete the marvel, it was faintly striped with green, like the well-known "greenstriped variety," although its parent was of a dark-brown hue. Could the old one have swallowed an errant youth by mistake? No. It had been many weeks in captivity, where no such errant youths were within reach besides, anemones do not swallow each other; cannibalism belongs to a higher grade of development. Apropos of this peculiarity of colour, I may remark on the great variations observable in the colour of anemones, and the impropriety of making colour the distinguishing

mark of species. Thus, to select a striking example, Mr Gosse makes two distinct species of the orangedisked and orange-tentacled anemones, naming them Venusta and Aurora; but as if to prove the indifference of all such characteristics, I brought with me from Tenby an orange-disked-and only one-which, before it had been home a fortnight, I discovered, with great surprise, was changed into an orange-tentacleddisc and tentacles being of a rich orange hue, the only traces of white remaining just at the tips. If there had been any other specimen in the vase I might have doubted; but having only one in company with a white daisy, and a smooth anemone, there was no avoiding the conclusion.

The reader was promised "New Facts," and those already furnished will show him how great an accession to our knowledge may be anticipated from the present direction of so many minds towards these animals; what is written in the best books must be accepted as only suggestions of a few observers, to be controlled by the investigations of succeeding observers. Many problems await solution; many stereotyped assertions must be disproved. Let us here consider one or two accepted "facts" which will turn out to be fancies when rigorously examined.

Perhaps nothing has excited more surprise on the part of the public, and nothing has been more unanimously believed by anatomists, than the hypothesis that certain minute organs found in Polypes, and variously styled thread capsules, filiferous capsules, or urticating cells, are organs of urtication, or stinging. The uncritical laxity with which this hypothesis has been accepted may point a lesson. I do not allude to the acceptance of the fact that certain capsules containing threads are found in Polypes, but to the acceptance of the alleged purpose or function of these capsules. The things are there, sure enough; but whether they serve the urticating purpose is another matter. Ever since they were first described by

*

Wagner, Erdl,+ Quatrefages, and Siebold, they have passed without challenge. They have been detected in the whole group of Polypes, in Jelly-fishes, in the papilla of Eolids, and, according to Vander Hoeven, in Planaria; yet, as far as my reading extends, not one single experiment has been made to prove the function so unanimously admitted, not a single test has been applied to strengthen or controvert what was, indeed, very plausible, but only plausible, not proven. Accordingly, no sooner did I submit the question to that rigorous verification which science imperiously requires, than it became clear to me that my illustrious predecessors -Wagner, Erdl, Siebold, Quatrefages, Ehrenberg, Agassiz, and Owen -men whom the most presumptuous would be slow to contradict, had admitted the point without proof, because it wore so plausible an air. Let me hope the reader will accuse me of no immodesty in thus controverting men so eminent; he will see that whereas they have only hypothesis on their side, I have the accumulated and overwhelming weight of experimental evidence. What are these capsules," or "urticating cells?" The uninstructed reader may be told that the Polypes are supposed to urticate, or sting, like nettles; and the nettling organs, or urticating cells, are supposed to be minute suboval microscopic capsules, quite transparent, containing within them threads coiled up, which, on pressure, dart out to many times the length of the capsule, into which they never return. This thread Agassiz likens to a lasso thrown by the polype to secure its prey. I will not enter here into minute details of structure, which would only confuse the reader, who, if curious, will find all that is known, in the works of Mr Gosse, and the treatises of Owen, Siebold, and Rymer Jones. Any one who has once seen these threads under the microscope darting out with lightning rapidity, especially if he uses a high power, and detects the hooks

* WIEGMANN'S Archiv., 1835, ii. p. 215.

with which some of them seem to be furnished, will at once admit that the hypothesis of the "nettling" or "urtication" being performed by these threads is an hypothesis so obvious, an explanation so natural, that-it should be doubted. In all complex matters, we should mistrust the obvious explanation; I do not say that we should disregard or reject. it, but mistrust it. When we know, on the one hand, that the jelly-fish stings, and when, on the other hand, we know that it is furnished with numerous cells, in which are coiled threads, to be seen darting out when pressed, the idea of connecting the stinging with these threads is inevitable: but this is not enough for science; it is only a preparatory guess, which proves nothing; it may be right, it may be wrong. I believe it is altogether wrong. We have already seen how erroneous was the supposition that Polypes paralysed their victims with a touch; that poison was secreted by their tentacles; yet for this supposition there was at least the evidence of partial observation, whereas, for the supposition we have now to consider, there is absolutely no evidence at all.

On a survey of the places where these" urticating cells" are present, we stumble upon an unlucky fact, and one in itself enough to excite suspicion. They are present in a few jelly-fish-which urticate; in actiniæ -which urticate; and in all polypes

which, if they do not urticate, are popularly supposed to do so, and at any rate possess some peculiar power of adhesion. In all these cases organ and function may be said to go together. But the cells are also present in the majority of jelly-fish, which do not urticate; in Eolids which do not urticate; and in Planaria- which do not urticate. Here, then, we have the organ without any corresponding function; urticating cells, but no urtication. The cautious mind of Owen had already warned us that there was something not quite satisfactory in our supposition; some super

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