Page:The Book of the Aquarium and Water Cabinet.djvu/102

90 has seen specimens of Bunodes alba acquire complete forms in duplicate when the original specimen has been severed into two or more parts; and there are many other instances on record of this plant-like division of sea anemones having been observed.

Though apparently immobile, there are few species but possess some power of locomotion. We frequently meet with anemones attached to stones, sand, or shells, by a wide sucking base, and if some species be moved from their chosen site, certain death is the result. Yet in by far the greater number there is a distinct faculty of progression—the anemone, by a slow, gliding motion, gradually removes itself, and climbs up the sides of the vessel, or takes possession of a tuft of weed, or shifts from one stone to another, or fairly leaves go of its anchorage, and floats like a balloon upon the surface. Thus low in the scale as they are, they possess will, and a power of obeying it; they have their organs of locomotion, of attack, and defence; though naked, they are armed for combat on an equality with their enemies, and succombsuccumb [sic] at last to man—the universal destroyer and appropriator—who turns them to account as food, or treasures them as gems of beauty that gratify his eye, and even win over the affections of his heart, while they lead him to contemplate the variety and profuseness of that life to which the Almighty has given so many wondrous forms, and instincts, and economies, every one of which proclaims—