220 BUDDING CELL-SPINES. 



showed eight points budding from the more acute 

 end ; and in one the most advanced, these were already- 

 produced into eight slender spines, set around the 

 end like the teeth of a comb, and slightly divergent. 

 In this the the general hue was a pale pellucid flesh 

 colour ; and an opaque hand of deep red was 

 arranged in a horse-shoe form, around the end oppo- 

 site the spines. (See fig. 2). 



During the next day little change took place except 

 the lengthening of the spines ; but by the following 

 evening, forty-eight hours after I had observed it in 

 the state just described (fig. 2) it had made importan^- 

 advances. The spines, without increasing in thick- 

 ness, had shot out, until the middle and next pair were 

 nearly as long as the transverse diameter of the body » 

 the other two pairs were much shorter. A touch 

 with a pin broke short ofi" two of these, proving that 

 they were very brittle, whence, and from their crystal- 

 line appearance, I infer their calcareous or siliceous 

 nature. But while I was examining it I was surprised 

 to observe a bundle of filaments among the spines, 

 and much resembling them, except that they were 

 bent irregularly, and slowly moved among themselves, 

 while the spines were fixed. Lo ! the bundle is gently 

 protruding, and presently the whole is withdrawn like 

 lightning out of sight into what I can no longer hesi- 

 tate to call the oval cell. A simultaneous jerk in the 

 contents of the cell set me upon trying to make out 

 the form of these, in which, notwithstanding the con- 

 fusion of the parts, I had already traced (or fancied) 

 the body of an ascidian polype, doubly bent up, like 

 that of a Membranipora or Flustra. By careful 



