SEPARATE SEXES? 171 



bands will bulge through the opening ; but if we are 

 vigilant and brush these aside, we shall perceive certain 

 lobular or grape-like masses of darker colour, almost 

 entirely hidden by these bands, but growing from the 

 septa. — (Plate III, fig. 2, represents a section of the 

 Actinia, showing the ovaries lying under the con- 

 voluted bands, and attached to the septum ; fig. 3, the 

 (jvary, when spread out on a glass slide.) They are not 

 situated in any precise spot ; near the base, about the 

 centre, and close to the disc, they may be found : nor 

 are they on every septum ; sometimtes we may make 

 three or four incisions before detecting them. 



Such are the ovaries of the Ci^assicornis : but are 

 they entitled to the name ? Are they organs at all ? 

 A minute inspection of them will confirm what I said 

 just now that they are not " organs," properly so 

 called ; that is to say, they are not, like the ovaries of 

 higher animals, permanent organs having a definite 

 and specific structure ; they are, in truth, nothing but 

 accumulations of germ-cells in a delicate membrane. 

 They have none of the essential characteristics of an 

 ovary. It is true that Spix, Delle Chiaje, Rapp, de 

 Blainville, Van der Hoeven, and others, describe what 

 they call oviducts, without, however, agreeing as to 

 their disposition. But Mr Teale and M. Hollard have 

 been unable to find them, and I also can confidently 

 assert that no duct whatever, nor anything distantly 

 resembling it, exists ; but, as I have convinced myself 

 by scores of dissections, the whole structure of the 

 ovary is limited to a delicate membranous stroma, 



