81 Messrs. Hancock and Embleton on the Anatomy o/Eolis. 



^ with the fluids of the digestive cavity. In this state it is di'iven 

 1 throughout the ahmentary system by the alternate contractions 

 of the pyriform pouch and the great trunks leading from it. 

 These contractions are only of a nature to produce an oscillatory 

 motion which serves to promote that intimate mixture of the ali- 

 mentary matters with the hepatic and other secretions neces- 

 sary to the process of digestion. 



We have watched this action with great care in E. coronata, 

 and have observed on several occasions in individuals that were free 

 and moving about at pleasure, and in which the action of the 

 parts was natural, currents passing rapidly backwards and for- 

 wards through the stomach, and larger ramifications obeying the 

 various contractions of the parts, and holding in suspension large, 

 crude, irregular particles varying in size and shape. We had the 

 satisfaction also to see more than one individual take its food, 

 which we have found to be always of an animal nature, and could 

 perceive the lumps as they were lopped ofi'by the jaws pass along 

 the oesophagus and enter the stomach. We have likewise fre- 

 quently seen the track of the true intestine marked out by the 

 dark colour of the fseces it contained, and have witnessed also the 

 expulsion of the same from the anus. 



M. de Quatrefages supposes that the refined products of di- 

 gestion pass into the branchial caeca as he terms them, and also 

 into the ovoid vesicle, though in the latter he has seen no float- 

 ing corpuscles. Through the walls of the C3eca, and especially 

 through those of the vesicle, he believes that the chyle for the 

 support of the body transudes. Again, he makes the branchial 

 cseca surrounded by a granular mass performing the office of liver, 

 thus cumulating in the same organ function upon function. We 

 have already stated that we agree with M. de Quatrefages in 

 taking the glands of the papillse, as we term them, to represent 

 the liver, and we now subjoin, that we see no reason to believe 

 them to be also the organs by means of which the chyle is con- 

 veyed from the digestive to the circulatory system. We have our- 

 selves seen crude particles of the alimentary matters mixed with 

 regular corpuscles pass into the glands of the papillse, and on one 

 occasion even a large angular fragment was forced through the 

 narrow duct at the base of a gland, entering its cavity and after- 

 wards passing out again. But in all these cases, our specimens, 

 as well as those of M. de Quatrefages, were suffering considerably 

 from the action of the compressor, and consequently the fluids of 

 the stomach and other parts may have been forced into unnatural 

 channels. We do not put much faith in examinations conducted 

 in this way, and indeed the only satisfactory method of investi- 

 gating this subject is to watch the progress of digestion when the 



