Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/296

Rh as could be desired. It had three full-sized rays, and two very small ones, doubtless reproducing. Suddenly, without any apparent provocation, it threw off one of the large rays. I did not see the process, but I had looked at it a moment before, and at the next glance the patient was marching calmly on as before with one of his legs an inch behind him. The suckers of the rejected ray were still as active as before, alternately loosening their hold and adhering, just as before, but there was no advance.

Seven hours afterwards, when I retired to bed, the suckers of the ray were still moving, and the ray maintained its adhesion to the perpendicular side of the glass; as it did also when I got up the next morning. But by this time four more rays were separated, and were adhering by their suckers to the upright glass just where they had been left: while the body pursued its solitary journey solaced by the fidelity of its sole remaining ray,—one of the large ones.

My curiosity had been excited by the fact that I could not determine with certainty the point from which the first rejected member had separated. I examined the animal minutely, but so entire seemed the whole skin, and so equidistant the remaining rays, that I could not satisfy myself, though I returned again and again to the scrutiny. I did not, however, choose to handle the animal much. But now that so many limbs were gone the points of separation were just visible, yet the contraction of the surrounding parts was so great that the wounds were exceedingly small. The separation was in each case exactly the same, by an oblique cut, as it were, upward and