Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/183

142 taken up his abode also. The Adamsia was prettily spotted, though so young; its position was as usual the inner lip of the shell. This, curious specimen, interesting on more than one account, was dredged in 8 fathoms off Whitenose in Weymouth Bay, a mile or two from land, on the 12th of September, 1853. It lived in captivity five days.

My notion is further confirmed by what takes place in the disease and death of the animal. When the Crab deserts the shell or dies out, the Anemone for a while expands as usual. But after a week or two, it is evidently seen to be languishing; and soon its adhering base begins to peel off and shrink away from the shell. Now this process commences at the suture, and as it goes on the suture divides, the lateral portions separate more and more from each other, by skrinkingshrinking [sic]; reversing exactly the steps by which the annular habit was assumed, and which I have described above. At length, the connexion of the animal with the shell is wholly dissolved, and the former collapses into a shapeless lump of flesh, from which the integuments slough away in gelatinous shreds, and the whole swiftly becomes a putrescent mass.

Since the above was written, Mr. Thompson has favoured me with an account of an Adamsia so aberrant in its habit as to require a modification of the statement that a shell is always chosen. My friend writes as follows:—"I have lately obtained a specimen of Adamsia palliata, dredged in three fathoms' water, on a frond of Fucus serratus. It is round and united, but with a suture down one side."

A curious evidence of the efficiency of the