Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/410

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406
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

of sponges. This little lobster-like animal has one very large claw and one small one, and when captured it snaps the nippers of the large claw, producing a sound resembling the sudden cracking of thick glass, so that one imagines that the aquarium has broken. It is well known

Fig. 9. Cassiopea xamachana, the Jellyfish of the Moat of Fort Jefferson. Tortugas.

from the work of Prizbram that if the large claw of Alpheus be cut off the small claw changes to a large one at the next molt.

Dr. Stockard finds, however, that if the large claw be removed and at the same time all legs of the opposite side of the body except the small claw be cut off, the small claw does not change into a large one