76 CONNECTICUT GEOL. AND NAT. HIST. SURVEY. [Bull. 



when kept in an aquarium, but an examination of the contents 

 of their stomachs often reveals fragments of the indigestible 

 parts of small crustaceans and other animals. Since it seems 

 doubtful if the ophiuran would be able to capture these animals 

 alive, it is believed that it acts mainly as a scavenger, taking 

 into the large saccular stomach all sorts of dead animal matter 

 and digesting out the substances capable of assimilation. Those 

 parts which cannot be digested are thrown out of the mouth 

 opening. 



Probably the greater part of the food of many species con- 

 sists of the superficial layer of organic matter which covers the 

 rocks and floor of the sea in all situations not accessible to 

 waves and currents. The diatoms and other minute organisms 

 contained therein are passed toward the mouth by the tube-feet 

 of the arms. 



Some species crawl about on the sea-bottom sweeping the 

 arms back and forth in search of food materials. Other species, 

 such as Amphioplus abditus, lie for a time buried in the mud 

 with one or more of the extremely slender arms protruding 

 above the surface of the mud. The tube-feet (tentacles) of 

 these arms select the food particles within reach and pass them 

 to the mouth. 



REPRODUCTION 



The reproductive organs consist ordinarily of five pairs of 

 genital glands, situated on the walls of five sacs called the genital 

 bursae, which open to the exterior of the body by five or ten pairs 

 of large slits situated on the oral surface of the disk close beside 

 the bases of the rays. These openings are called the genital slits, 

 and are usually quite conspicuous (Fig. 9 and Plate XIV). 



The sexes are usually separate, all the glands in one individ- 

 ual producing eggs and in another spermatozoa. In the little 

 Amphipholis squamata, however, one of the glands of each 

 genital bursa produces eggs while the other forms sperm cells. 



The sexual products when ripe break out of the sexual glands 

 into the genital bursse and are usually discharged directly through 

 the genital slits, although in the above-named hermaphrodite 

 species the eggs are fertilized and develop within the genital 

 bursse. 



