The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1904-10-06
A DEGENERATE.
Awful Fate of the Lazy Little Sea
Squirt.

Among marine animals are very
| large number of creatures SO little
interesting when grown up that they
might very well pass for smooth,
lumpy cactuses,' says the London
| Spectator. They have no eyes, or
| ears or limbs, but look like little
fleshy sacks tied up tightly at the top,
and fixed to rock or the mud at the
| bottom. They are called tunicata, or
jacketed animals, and many of them
ascidians, or sacklike animals, for
the same reason. More closely exam
ined they do not become greatly more
interesting. There is an orifce at the
top into which sea water comes, and
another at the side from which il
flows out; and when cut open they are
found to be built UP only Of a double
jacket, inside of which is another
sack, rather deliberately made to pass
currents of water from part to part,
and so to aerate the creatures blood,
and with an apparatus which passes
on particles OF food to a gullet and
i stomach. 1t is as nearly little capable
OF thought or action as it is possible
for living animal to be. 1t has. no
eyes or nose or hearing apparatus, no
hands or tentacles or feelers, and no
power Of movement or locomotion.
But it can open it's mouth and close it,
and shoot a jet of water from it. This
being its only obvious action, it has
been fortunate in obtaining a popular
name from the fact. The ascidians are
called sea squirts.'
"Unexciting though the ascidian is
when it has come to years of discre-
ton. it is full of interest when it's his
tory is considered from the days of it's
tenderest youth. It's story exhibits
one Of the most dreadful and striking
morals ever inferred by the unerring
logic of the biologist and the student
OF human nature. 1t is not what the
ascidian is, but what he was and what
he might have been, that furnish food
for reflection, and warning and eX-
ample to men and mollusks. The lit
tie ascidian began life full of promise.
Judging by analogy, there was almost
nothing within the range of it's posi-
bilities which it might not have as
pired to. 1t was born as a not very
inferior tadpole, with every chance of
leading an active and creditable life
in that stage, and of passing on to q
more honorable and distinguished sta
tus later. 1t was SO like a frog tad
pole that it almost needed a micro
scope to tell the difference. 1t had a
Wriggling tail, unlimited swimming
powers, spinal cord, a mouth, head
of course, brain, with an eye and an
ear in posse inside it, and gills. Yet,
instead of developing into a creature
which in the process of evolution
might have We'd with the activities of
frog, or have been quite in the upper
circle Of mollusks at least, it turns
gradually into creature little better
than a fixed and stationary football
with a stomach inside it. And the
cause? The cause was want Of mo-
bility. Nature had provided it with
one organ, or set of organs, which
acted as it's evil genius and perverted
and desolated all the bright promise of
40 6OIuCn yOulA. DSlOW llS uIOuCu IL
had kind of sucker which enabled
it to catch hold and to hold on.
The moral conflict between it's good
genius in it's tail and it's evil genius
in it's sucker was imperfectly aided
by its not yet adequately developed
brain. Too young as yet to know and
balance tendencies, it allowed sloth to
give battle to mobility, and failed to
intervene when the latter was losing.
The genius of sloth in the adhesive
organ soon took entire possessic-. of
it. It's tail wriggled freely up in the
water, while it's head was kept down
ward. Then it's tail began to dwindle
from want of use till it vanished alto
gether, and with it all power of mo-
bility It's brain shrank up and prac-
tically vanished, and with it all pos
sibilities Of seeing and hearing. It's
intestines and stomach increased enor
Eously, and finally it became the mel
ancholy object which it now is in its
mature age