224 Herbert W. Rand 
as they appeared two hours after the cutting and in Fig. 14 are 
represented three consecutive pieces of a single tentacle six hours 
after cutting. In one experiment a fairly large tentacle of Condy- 
lactis was cut off near its base and then its distal end, representing 
about one-fifth the length of the tentacle, was cut away. ‘The con- 
ditions of both the larger and smaller parts of the tentacle at 
eighteen hours after the operation are shown inFig.15. In another 
case about three-fourths of a tentacle was excised and this piece 
was then cut in two midway of its length. “Twenty-four hours 
later the proximal fragment was fixed in mercuric chlorid. In 
the fixed condition the form of the fragment was practically the 
same as when alive and strongly contracted. An end view of the 
proximal end of the fixed piece is shown in Fig. 7. ‘These figures 
serve to illustrate two features which were fairly conspicuous and 
constant. First, the wrinkling is entirely confined to the proximal 
ends, whilethe distal ends are quite smooth. Secondly,the amount 
of wrinkling is decidedly greater at proximal cut surfaces situated 
nearer the base of the original tentacle than at those nearer the 
tip. This latter fact I believe to be connected with the fact that 
the diameter of the tentacle is much greater near the base than it 1s 
near the tip. The further history of fragments of Condylactis 
tentacles is this. The proximal end did not in any case become 
closed. After the first day the walls about the proximal end ex- 
hibited little change. They remained sharply infolded and much 
puckered until the fragment underwent dissolution, which occurred 
from two to four days after the cutting. Usually during the 
second day masses of broken down entoderm were intermittently 
discharged from the open proximal end, never from the distal end. 
The facts cited serve to show that there exists a marked differ- 
ence in the behavior of proximal and distal cut ends. ‘To demon- 
strate this difference as clearly as possible I made a series of experi- 
ments in each of which a single excised tentacle of Condylactis 
was transected into several pieces, generally three, and a careful 
study was made of the corresponding proximal and distal cut ends. 
(By “corresponding proximal and distal cut ends” I mean to 
indicate the two cut ends produced by a single transection; that is, 
the distal end of the piece lying proximad of the plane of cutting 
