THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPONGES. 567 



The Opalini?ia must clearly be arranged among the Infu- 

 soria. Stein regards them as simply the lowest forms of the 

 IToIotncha, but it will probably be safer to consider them as 

 a distinct group, standing in somewhat the same relation to 

 the Clliata as the Gregarmidce do to the Amoebce. 



Sectio]^' II. — The elucidation of the problem of the mode 

 of development of the Sponges has been greatly advanced 

 by the investigations of Oscar Schmidt/ Schulze/ and espe- 

 cially of Barrels,^ which confirm the assertion of Metschnikoff 

 that the vesicular morula which constitutes the early condi- 

 tion of the sponge-embryo consists of blastomeres of two 

 kinds; those of the one-half of the spheroidal or flattened 

 embryo being elongated and flagellate ; those of the other, 

 rounded, granular, and nonciliated. Schulze and Barrois 

 have independently ascertained that the latter region some- 

 times undergoes partial invagination ; and that a cup-shaped 

 body is produced, composed of an epiblast formed of flagel- 

 late cells and a hypoblast of spheroidal, non-ciliated cells. 

 Thus the " gastrula " stage of Haeckel may exist, though it 

 is not formed by delamination, as he supposed, but by invagi- 

 nation. But it appears that this gastrula-stage does not 

 always occur, and that when it does, it is transitory, in so far 

 as the hypoblastic cells subsequently enlarge, protrude be- 

 yond the epiblastic cells, and give rise to the free ovate em- 

 bryo formed of a ciliated and nonciliated half, which has so 

 often been observed. According to Barrois's observations, 

 this free swimming larva fixes itself by its nonciliated hypo- 

 blastic half, and the hypoblastic cells are invested by those of 

 the epiblast, which thus constitute the whole outer covering 

 of the young sponge. The central cavity of the sponge, 

 which represents the archenteron, arises in the midst of the 

 included hypoblastic cells, while the osculum is a secondary 

 opening, formed apparently by an invagination of the ecto- 

 derm, and has nothing to do with the primitive blastopore. 

 Thus even the simplest sponge has passed bej'ond the gas- 

 trula-stage. 



Schulze has made the important discovery that, in S^- 



^ 1 " Zur Orientirung liber die Entwickelung der Spongien " {Zeifschriftfi/r 

 wiss. Zoologie^ 18751; and " Nochmals die "Gastrula der Kalkschwiimme " 

 (" Archiv f. Mikr. Anat.," 1876). 



2_"Ueber den Bau und die Entwickelung von Sycandra raphanus'''' {Zeit- 

 Bchrlft fur wiss. Zoologie, 1875) ; and " Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte von Sy- 

 caudra" (ibid., 1876). 



3 " Annalea des Sciences Naturelles," 1876. 



