502 THE ANATOMY OF INVERTEBRATED ANIMALS. 



first asserted by Ludwig/ caunot be doubted. Immediately 

 beneath it rims a small canal, discovered by Dr. Carpenter, 

 and termed by liim the tentacular canal, which gives off lat- 

 eral branches to communicate with the cavities of the pedi- 

 cels. A second much wider canal — the suhtentacular canal — 

 lies beneath this, and is divided hy a longitudinal septum. 

 But the septum is incomplete at intervals, and thus the two 

 canals communicate. A third, still larger — cceliac canal — is 

 interposed between the floor of the suhtentacular canal and 

 the axial skeleton of the arm. 



Where the arm joins the calyx the tentacular canals run 

 beneath the ambulaeral groove to the gullet, around which 

 they are united by a circular canal, from w^liich numerous 

 short diverticula, resembling the vasa amhvlacraUa cavi in 

 the Ophiurids, described by Simrock {I. c), depend. The 

 suhtentacular and coeliac canals communicate with channels 

 in the perivisceral tissue, on the oral or the aboral face of the 

 visceral mass ; and these channels appear, eventually, to 

 open freely into the cavities by which the columella is trav- 

 ersed. 



In the partition betw^een the suhtentacular and the coeliac 

 canals there lies a cellular cord, or rachis, which can be traced 

 back into a reticulation of similar tissue in the visceral mass. 

 The genital glands contained in the pinnules are enlargements 

 of lateral branches of this rachis. But the rachis is appar- 

 ently onlj- an extension of the mesodermal tissue of the vis- 

 ceral mass, comparable to that in which the genitalia are 

 lodged in the Star-fishes ; and the multiplication of the geni- 

 tal glands may be regarded as a further extension of the 

 structure which obtains in JBrisinga. Thus it would seem 

 that the position of the genital glands in the Crinoids is not 

 so anomalous as it at first apjiears to be. 



The centro-dorsal tubercle contains a cavity with which 

 the canals which traverse the ossicula of the cirri, the calyx, 

 the brachia, and the pinnules communicate. This cavity was 

 considered by Midler to be a heart. It proves, however, to 

 be largely filled by solid tissue, which is continued not only 

 into all the canals which traverse the ossicula, but also into 

 the columella, or tissue which occupies the centre of the coils 

 of the alimentary canal. 



Dr. Carpenter^ is of opinion that so much of this axial 



» ZertseJirift fur tviss. Zoologie, 1876. 



2 " Proceedings of the Royal Society," 18T6. 



