198 ZOOPHYTA HELIANTHOIDA. 



ries considerably, some extending scarcely a line from their ex- 

 ternal attachment, others reaching as far as the stomach, being 

 nearly half an inch in breadth. The height generally corre- 

 sponds with the height of the animal ; a few, however, of the 

 narrowest leaflets extending upwards from the base, terminate 

 obliquely in the sides, without being prolonged as high as to the 

 lip or roof."* These lamellae are of a muscular character, and 

 by their actions cause the body to assume its various forms. The 

 spaces between them are filled, 1st, with the ovaries attached, in 

 elongated masses, to the inner border of most of the leaflets ; 

 and 2dli/, with the " vermiform filaments" which, as already 

 mentioned, are often extruded at the mouth. These filaments 

 are capillary, greatly convoluted, smooth and of a white colour, 

 with a sort of mesentery extended along one side. Their ap- 

 pearance naturally suggests the idea of their being either the in- 

 testines or the oviducts of the creature, but they perform no 

 function of the kind ; and probably they are csecal, analogous 

 to the filaments which hang from the stomach of the asteroid 

 zoophytes. They have been often described as ovarian, even by 

 late authorsjf but Mr Teale has fully shewn the improbabihty, 

 if not the erroneousness of this opinion. He believes the fila- 

 ment to be tubular, though he acknowledges he has not been 

 able to obtain any evidence of the fact, and " under the micro- 

 scope it appears simply as a round, solid, translucent chord." 

 Such also has it always appeared to me, so that I can scarcely 

 hesitate to pronounce Dicquemare's description of its structure 

 to be altogether incorrect. " I have observed," he says, " that 

 there grows or comes out of their body and mouth a sort of 

 threads about the size of a horse-hair, which being examined with 

 a solar microscope of five inches diameter, appear as if made up 



* Teale in Trans. Leeds' Soc. i. 96. 



f " Entre ce sac interieuv (the stomach) et la peau exterieure, est une orga- 

 nisation assez compliquee, mais encore obscure, consistent surtout en feuillets 

 verticaux et fibreux, auxqiiels adherent les ovaires, semblables a des fils tres en- 

 tortilles." Cuvier, Reg. Anim. iii. p. 290. Delle Chiaje in Bull, des So. Nat. 

 xvii. 471. See also J. R. Jones in Cyclop, of Anat. and Physiol, ii. 409 — 

 Sharpey describes them as oviducts. Cyclop, cit. i. 614. Dicquemare had a 

 singular notion that they contained certain bulbs or buds " which open in time 

 and cleaving to the bodies on which these threads are extended, produce small 

 anemonies." Phil. Trans, abridg. xiii. 6.39. 



