CORALS AND CORAL MAL'CERS. 19 



friture^ and I can say, ^ Probatum est.^ No squeamishness of 

 stomach prevents our volatile friends, the French, from appre- 

 ciating its excellence ; for the dish called Rastcgna, which is a 

 great favourite in Provence, is mainly prepared from AntJiea 

 cefeiis. I would not dare to say that an Opelet is as good as 

 an Omelet ; but diacun a son goiit — try for yourselves. The 

 dish is readily achieved." 



The stomach, although without a proper sphincter muscle at 

 its inner extremity, appears to be closed below during the 

 process of digestion. When digestion is complete, the refuse 

 from the food is pushed out through the mouth, the only ex- 

 ternal opening to the alimentary cavity, and the digested 

 material passes downward into the interior cavity; and there, 

 mixed with sea-water from without, it is distributed through 

 all the interior cavities of the polyp for its nutrition. The 

 polyp has no circulating fluid but the results of digestion 

 mixed with salt water, no blood vessels but the vacuities among 

 the tissues, and no passage-way for excrements excepting the 

 mouth and the pores of the body that serve for the escape of 

 water on the contraction of the animal. 



Actiniae have usually no gills or bra?ichice for the aeration of 

 the blood, the whole surface of the body being ordinarily 

 sufficiently soft and delicate to serve in this function. Some 

 species Uve half buried in the sand, and, as this in large spe- 

 cies would prevent the skin of the sides from aiding in respira- 

 tion, there are sometimes very much lobed and crimpled organs, 

 attached to, or alongside of, the tentacles, which give the 

 animal-flower much greater beauty, and at the same time in- 

 crease the extent of surface for the purposes of aeration ; they 

 are set down as branchial by Prof. Verrill. 



In one tribe of polyps closely related to the Actiniae, the 

 Zoanthids, in which the outer skin is usually somewhat corria- 

 ceous, or is filled with grains of sand, there are narrow gills 

 arranged vertically, one on either side of the larger radiating 

 septa, figures of which are given in the author's Zoophyte 

 Atlas. 



As to senses, Actinia, or the best of them, are not quite as 



C 2 



