Little need is there to doubt the purpose of 

 those murderous arms: tiny tentacled creatures 

 such as these subsist almost entirely on still smal- 

 ler and luckless animals that chance to swim with- 

 in their grasp; or failing to obtain this living fare, 

 they will seize upon any bits of carrion drifting by. 

 The extraordinary capacity of the tentacles, where- 

 with these little creatures are enabled to paralyze 

 their prey, is owing to the hundreds of stinging- 

 cells with which these are invested. Under a pow- 

 erful lens, the cells appear egg-shaped, and each 

 cell contains a thread-like filament coiled in the 

 manner of a spiral spring. One end of this spring 

 is fixed to the cell ; the other end is free. And it is 

 charged with an irritant poison (probably formic 

 acid) . When any solid organic matter, dead or 

 alive, comes into contact with the tentacles, the 

 cells in the vicinity touched release the coiled 

 darts, and these are driven into the colliding ob- 

 ject, numbing or arresting it, whereupon the mor- 

 sel is drawn to the mouth and engulfed. 



Winter comes. Again I am privileged to follow 

 another change in the form of the scyphistoma — 

 for such is the technical name of this stage in the 

 growth of the tentacled young. The singular num- 



[374] 



