Page:Scotsman 11 October 1887 In Memoriam Granny.pdf/1

 IN MEMORIAM—"GRANNY"

About thirty years since this notice would have required no preface. During the popular furore for domestic aquaria, and the study of common objects of the sea-shore, "Granny," which had been in Edinburgh drawing-rooms since 1828, was recognized as the pioneer of the new movement in popular education. This Actinia Mesembryanthemum, sea anemone, or "animal flower" of older naturalists, was one of many whose rounded leathery forms, bright with rainbow irridescenceiridescence [sic] in their native element, made them the chief ornaments of the glass vases of sea water in our drawing-rooms, though surrounded by algæ, prawns, shrimps, and periwinkles. Ladies, timorous of the contact of marine objects with Brussels carpets, admired the central circled mouth, surrounded by some hundred feelers, depicted in the magnificent monograph of Philip H. Gosse, containing also a portrait of "Granny". But though a too fastidious housewifery banished the study of living marine life to the public establishments now specially devoted to this object, its notoriety has grown in natural history circles. Need we scruple, then, to record "Granny’s" death amongst the notabilia of this Jubilee year? When Sir John Graham Dalyell transferred it from its rock crevice on North Berwick shore to his house in Great King Street in 1828, he computed it to be then at least seven years old. It was shown in an article on longevity, published in these columns in 1879, that it was then nearly sixty years old. Thus all along the Queen’s reign and longer distinguished observers have kept eyes on this leathery-rounded mass, not two inches in height and breadth, asking both how long will it live and how many children will it produce? More than six hundred members of its offspring are known, who have multiplied; hence the familiar cognomen "Granny."

On the death of Sir John Dalyell, who figured and described it in "The Rare and Remarkable Animals of Scotland," this specimen passed over to the care of Professor John Fleming, D D., and afterwards successively to that of Dr M'Bain and Messrs Sadler and Lindsay, of the Royal Botanic Gardens. It has been in the constant company of the most distinguished Edinburgh naturalists, regularly receiving its half mussel once a fortnight, and at the same time a fresh supply of sea water. It has seen the rise and fall of several fashionable scientific theories, as well as all that political and social change now emblazoned in the pages of Jubilee volumes. It has been to the British Association at Aberdeen, when Prince Albert was President, besides appearing several times before Edinburgh scientific societies. In its album, kept in the Curator’s drawing-room at the Royal Botanic Garden, are over a thousand autographs, including those of Lord High Commissioners for the nonce residing at Holyrood, distinguished professors and travellers, as well as boys and girls fresh from the wonders of tropical plant life displayed in the hot-houses. That record must now be held to be closed, for on the 4th August last, while surrounded by several of its offspring, and despite all the watchful care of Mr Lindsay, "Granny" succumbed, being known to have lived sixty-seven years. Apparently for State reasons, its death is only now announced. An attack of Saprolegnia, the fungus of the salmon disease, on the horny membrane, appears to have been an inciting cause of death. But actinias have been known to exert great muscular power, and show high possibilities of recuperation. Thus Dr Johnson, of Berwick, saw one whose skin had been cut through by a shell fish it had swallowed, but which outgrew the injury. Then Mr C. Peach has observed actinias spurt out periwinkles, limpets, &c. from their central stomach when they had assimilated the fleshy contents. May not, then, our actinia have come to a premature death through its living for sixty years in civilisation? What brief lives domestic animals have compared with their savage kindreds! Certain birds and fishes are noted as having attained ages of two hundred years or so. Why, then, should not "Granny’s" obituary be concluded with the inference that, as things go, the sea and atmosphere are more favourable to long life than the solid earth? Maurice Thompson asks in the September Scribner — "Is not the highest type of bird the completest animal, in point of physical equipoise and fitness for indefinite prolongation of individual life, that the world holds, man not excepted?" In thousands of wild birds which this authority has killed or seen killed in the southern woods of North America not one showed signs of decay or disease; excepting wounds or intestinal worms, the animals were otherwise perfectly capable of life for a very long period.