GENUS EP HELOT A. 847 



Jersey coasts, and is evidently identical with that form upon which the above title was 

 first conferred by Strethill Wright. In describing the tentacles of this species more 

 minutely, that authority remarks that in some examples he found "a bundle or 

 framework of fine parallel rods imbedded in the soft contractile sarcode," while 

 other examples exhibited a " beaded " structure only. In all the specimens 

 personally examined, this last-mentioned beaded or coarsely granular structure was 

 apparent, but no trace could be detected of the rod-like bodies, which were therefore 

 possibly adventitious substances. As observed by Dr. Wright, the tentacles are 

 flexible, and capable of being curved inwards, but in a more active manner than he 

 has described ; one or more of these tentacles, in fact, as observed in association 

 with fully expanded examples, were constantly being bent down and inwards until 

 their points touched the margin of the periphery, and were then immediately raised 

 up and extended to their former erect position. The method by which food is 

 incepted in this form has up to the present time eluded all efforts to determine. 

 This may be accomplished by the withdrawal into the substance of the body of a 

 single tentacle carrying with it its captured prey, as in the species next described ; 

 or, possibly, the food, after capture by the extended tentacles, is deposited upon the 

 surface of the periphery simultaneously with the systematic inward flexure of the 

 same just noticed, and then incepted through the soft cuticular sarcode. Should 

 this last hypothesis, however, prove to be correct and it is almost impossible 

 to get rid of the idea that some such function is associated with the persistent 

 deflection of the tentacles this form cannot be retained among the Stomatode 

 Infusoria, but will find its true place, under a new generic title, among the Radiolaria 

 somewhere near Schulze's Actinolophus pedunculatus. That it is not identical with 

 this last-named type, the author is in a position to determine, through having 

 encountered that interesting type in the neighbourhood of Jersey, under very similar 

 conditions. 



As intimated by Dr. Strethill Wright, the tentacles of Ephelota coronata cannot 

 be completely withdrawn. In the most contracted conditions personally observed, the 

 animalcules presented the aspect shown at PI. XLVIII. Fig. 3, in which the tentacula 

 form a small crown of short incurved digitiform prolongations around the apical 

 extremity. The form and position of the endoplast or nucleus in this species 

 remains as yet undetermined. 



Ephelota Trold, C. & L. sp. PL. XLVIIlA. FIG. 5. 



Body subspheroidal ; tentacles distributed singly and irregularly over the 

 entire surface of the periphery, each consisting of a short, thickened, slightly 

 elastic but not entirely retractile, tubular basal portion, and a slender, 

 elongate, completely retractile, ray-like distal part ; pedicle twice the length 

 of the body, sinuous, moderately thick and even throughout ; contractile 

 vesicle single. Diameter of body 1-350". 



HAB. Salt water, attached to seaweeds and Sertularia. 



This species, as previously intimated, is identical with the Podophrya Trold of 

 Claparede and Lachmann and the Ephelota apiculosa of Dr. Strethill Wright, the 

 specific title of the latter authority having, however, in accordance with the laws of 

 priority, to give way to the earlier one bestowed upon it by the French savants, 

 who first discovered the type on the Norwegian coast in September of the year 1858. 

 As shown by these last-named investigators, the thickened basal portion of the ten- 

 tacles of this species, although not retractile, are highly dilatable, permitting 

 the passage of food-particles of considerable size. In illustration of this fact, it is 

 recorded by the Swiss observers that examples were seen to seize specimens of Tin- 

 tinnus denticulatus and to pass them whole through the tubular basal portion of their 

 tentacles, while in one instance a zooid was similarly observed to seize a Tintinnus 

 simultaneously by two of its tentacula, and, after tearing it in half by their united 



