.S88 POLYZOA HYPPOCREPIA. 



entirely on the size of the specimen, — increasing as long as it 

 grows." 



" This product is endowed with the faculty of locomotion, either 

 extremity indifferently being in advance, but its progression, uncom- 

 monly slow, seldom exceeds an inch in twelve or twenty-four hours. 

 Each of the numerous polypi, though an integral portion of the com- 

 mon mass, is a distinct animal, endowed with separate action and 

 sensation. The body, rising about a line by a tubular fleshy stem, 

 is crowned by a head which may be circumscribed by a circle as 

 much in diameter, formed as a horse-shoe, and bordered by a hun- 

 dred tentacula. Towards one side, the mouth, of singular mechanism, 

 seems to have projecting lips and to open as a valve, which folds up 

 within, conveying the particles which are absorbed to the wide 

 orifice of an intestinal organ which descends, perhaps in a convolu- 

 tion, below, and returns again to terminate in an excretory canal 

 under the site of the tentacula. Probably the whole race of Crista- 

 tellte is distinguished by a similar conformation." 



" The polypus is a very vivacious animal, quickly retreating for 

 security when alarmed, and rising to expand in activity. Though 

 each be endowed with independent life, sensation, and all the motions 

 that can be exercised without actual transition, the whole are sub- 

 jected to the volition of the sluggish mass in respect to progression : 

 — they are borne along with it." " A specimen having been cut 

 transversely asunder, each portion seemed to recede by common 

 consent; but both survived, as if sustaining no injury. Neither is 

 any polypus afiected by the violence offered in its vicinity. 



" Twenty, thirty, or more lenticular substances, of considerable 

 size and in the most irregular arrangement, imbedded in the flesh, 

 are exposed through the translucent green of the animal. Its death 

 and decomposition towards the end of autumn liberate them to float 

 in the water. Subjected to the microscope, or, indeed to the naked 

 eye, their convex surfaces prove brown, the circumference yellow, 

 and begirt with a row of spines terminating in double hooks. Each 

 is an ovum of the Cristatella with a hard shell, and occupied by 

 yellowish fluid contents." " In five or six months the ovum gapes 

 at one side to allow the protrusion of an originating polypus, which 

 by a remarkable provision of nature now floats reversed, with the 

 head downwards, to ensure absorption of the liquid element below. 

 On quitting the ovum it attaches itself to some solid substance by 

 the base, then disproportionately large, from which a second polypus 

 quickly rises, then a third, and a fourth ; and thus with others. In 



