Singular Provision Against Famine
The synapta is a marine animal closely allied to the sea-cucumber. If one of them is preserved in sea-water for a short time, and subjected to a forced fast, a very strange thing will be observed. The animal, being unable to feed itself, successively detaches various parts of its body, which it amputates spontaneously. “It would appear,” says M. Quatrefages, “that the animal, feeling that it had not sufficient food to support its whole body, is able successively to abridge its dimensions by suppressing the parts it would be most difficult to support, just as we should dismiss the most useless mouths from a besieged city.” This singular mode of meeting a famine is employed by the synapta up to the last moment. In order to preserve life in the head, all the other parts of the body are sacrificed.