OF VORTICOID OR MEDUSOID DROPS 



397 



traversed by radial canals, four or in multiples of four; its edge is 

 beset with tentacles, smooth or often beaded, at regular intervals 

 and of graded sizes ; and certain sensory structures, including sohd 

 concretions or "otohths," are also symmetrically interspaced. No 

 sooner made, than it begins to pulsate ; the little bell begins to " ring." 



m 



& 



Fig. 1216. "Medusoid drops", of gelatin. After Hatschek, 



Buds, miniature replicas of the parent-organism, are very apt to appear 

 on the tentacles, or on the manubrium or sometimes on the edge of the 

 bell; we seem to see one vortex producing others before our eyes. 

 The development of a medusoid deserves to be studied without 

 prejudice, from this point of view. Certain it is that the tiny 

 medusoids of Obelia, for instance, are , budded off with a rapidity 

 and a complete perfection which suggest an automatic and all but 

 instantaneous act of conformation, rather than a gradual process of 

 growth. 



Moreover, not only do we recognise in a vorti- 

 coid drop a "schema" or analogue of medusoid 

 form, but we seem able to discover -various actual 

 phases of the splash ot drop in the all but in- 

 numerable living types of jellyfish; in Cladoneyna 

 we seem to see an early stage of a breaking drop, 

 and in Cordylophom a beautiful picture of incipient 

 vortices. It is hard indeed to say how much or little all these 

 analogies imply. But they indicate, at the very least, how certain 

 simple organic forms might be naturally assumed by one fluid mass 

 within another, when gravity, surface tension and fluid friction play 



Fig. 122. Meckbsach- 

 loris, a ciliate 

 infusoiia. 



