BOTRYLLUS SCHLOSSELtl. 61 



remains a great while expanded, or contracted. In all 

 these holes, the central large one, as well as the 

 smaller ones (which last I take to be the mouths of the 

 animal) I could not perceive any tentacula, or claws, 

 on the outside ; but by looking into them very narrowly, 

 I saw something like very tender little fibres moving 

 at the bottom of their insides. 



" By comparing and examining all the various 

 pieces I had collected of this fleshy substance, with 

 its shining stars, I observed, that the size and colour, 

 as well as the very figure of these stars, varied greatly, 

 but the structure of the leaf-like radii, and that of 

 their mouths, and their motions, were perfectly the 

 same, in every one individual. 



a 



FIG. 121. Systems of Botnjllus Schlosseri. Magnified. (After 

 Gaertner, loc. fit. pi. iv, ff. 2 5.) o, b, and c represent the varieties 

 so lettered in fig. 120 ; ' has the excretory common channel " ex- 

 panded as a cone." 



" Manv of these bodies I have found so thick and 



t/ 



large as to resemble the great branch'd Madrepora 

 coral, especially as they are generally to be met with 

 covering and inclosing the stem and branches of this 

 stiff, ramose fucus." 



Ellis, after describing the figures representing this 

 organism (figs. 118 and 119) and stating that he has 

 called it alcyonium cunioxitm. asteriscis, radiis obfusis, 

 or n nt a in, adds : " I have had an opportunity lately of 

 examining this curious, fleshy, coral-like substance in 

 the microscope, and find, that all the interstices 

 between the stars are filled with eggs of different 

 sizes, each adhering by one end to a very fine capil- 

 lary filament. The smallest eggs are globular, and as 

 they advance in size, change to an oval figure; from 



