72 THE SO-CALLED INDIVIDUALITY 



(/") which follows the undulating margin of the disc, just within 

 the rows of tentacles. The latter occupy eight broad spaces, 

 between the eight eyes (o), and correspond to the eight narrow 

 intervals between the ocular lappets (fig. 36, I) of the Ephyra. 

 If you imagine now, that, as these intervals widen, new tentacles 

 spring up on each side of the single one, and the lancet-shaped 

 body (v) gradually broadens correspondingly, you will have be- 

 fore you, in time, the long rows of tactile organs and the pen- 

 dent marginal veil (fig. 37, v) of the adult, stretching from eye 

 to eye, throughout the circuit of the umbrella. 



Comparing now these two individual forms, the hydra-form 

 Scyphostoma (figs. 34, 35) on the one hand, and the medusa- 

 form Ephyra (fig. 36) or the adult (fig. 37), with each other, you 

 very naturally will inquire which one is to be looked upon as the 

 original stock. The one which is called the adult produces the 

 eggs from its reproductive organs (fig. 37, r) ; but then from 

 each one of these eggs is hatched a Scyphostoma, which divides 

 its single individual self into several disc-shaped, egg-bearing 

 bodies, and, after throwing them off, retains its own integrity, to 

 repeat the same act for an unlimited number of times. The 

 question then is, are we to consider the Scyphostoma as the 

 original individual, the grown-up single egg, which casts off 

 periodically those parts of itself which contain the reproductive 

 organs, to complete their further development, simply as organs; 

 or must we look upon this hydra-form individual as essentially 

 a composite being, a compound of several bodies, a part of 

 whose number separate from the rest, and take on disguised 

 forms ? 



If we had no other instances of self-division or budding on 

 record, one could hardly refrain from adopting the latter view; 

 but as it is, there are facts which lend a powerful argument for 

 the adoption of the former category. Suppose, for instance, 

 that an egg, instead of developing into a hydra-form body, ex- 

 panded immediately into an ephyra-form, it would be a case in 

 which but one medusa was produced from one egg; and we 

 should then look upon the egg-stage as the one which corre- 



