464 WAYLAND M. CHESTER 



was large and its outline angular. The tissue around it was not 

 opaque. The distal end of the inner piece (a) — on the opposite 

 side of the same plane of cutting — was smooth. It had, at first, 

 a small round opening and the surrounding tissue was opaque 

 (fig. 4). Twenty-three hours after cutting, it was closed (fig. 5). 

 The proximal end of c and the distal end of h showed the same 

 contrast, except that the walls of the proximal end of c were not so 

 prominently wrinkled. Only in the case of cuts near the tip of 

 the tentacle, where the diameter was very small, did the two 

 openings resulting from the cut become nearer alike in size and 

 the cut ends similar in smoothness; but in no proximal ends did 

 opaque tissue appear, and nothing was found that indicated a 

 reversal of polarity as found in Condylactis (Rand, '09, p. 225), 

 where a nipple formed for a short time at the proximal end of 

 the most distal fragment. Figure 6, representing tentacle frag- 

 ments of a larger animal, illustrates the same polarity. In this 

 case the fragment (a) was severed from a tentacle and three days 

 later was divided into the two pieces, h and c. Thirty minutes after 

 the latter cut was made, the constriction on the distal end of h and 

 the open wrinkled appearance at the proximal end of c were 

 evident. The two adjacent ends of the fragments, proximal and 

 distal, very evidently react in unlike ways. For, even in those 

 cases where the distal end does not completely close by muscle 

 action, its rounded and smooth surface, its small circular hole and 

 opaque tissue are in contrast with the wrinkled walls, the large 

 irregular opening, and the lack of opaque tissue of the proximal 

 cut end. 



A series of twenty excised tentacles, kept in chloretone solutions, 

 was watched. The animal was kept in chloretone until there 

 was no response to touch. A tentacle was then severed and a 

 piece cut away from its distal end. After care had been taken to 

 see that the walls were not held together by the pinching of the 

 scissors, the closure of both proximal and distal ends was watched. 

 As was the case in the attached tentacle stumps in chloretone, all 

 trace of anything like nipple formation was lacking at a distal 

 end. The abrupt initial inrolling was followed by the slow in- 

 bending of the edges toward the center. The opening was reduced 



