TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 603 



are smooth ; the former somewhat convex, occasioned by a 

 border of 70 or 80, or even of 350 individual polypi, disposed 

 in a triple row. Their number depends entirely on the size of 

 the specimen, — increasing as long as it grows. 



_ This product is endowed with the faculty of locomotion, 

 either extremity indifferently being in advance ; but its progres- 

 sion, uncommonly slow, seldom exceeds an inch in twelve or 

 twenty-four hours. 



Each of the numerous polypi, though an integral portion of 

 the common mass, is a distinct animal, endowed with separate 

 action and sensation. The body, rising about a line by a tubu- 

 lar fleshy stem, is crowned by a head, which may be circum- 

 scribed by a circle as much in diameter, formed as a horse- 

 shoe, and bordered by a hundred tentacula. Towards one 

 side the mouth, of singular mechanism, seems to have projectino- 

 lips and to open as a valve ; folds up within, conveyino- the 

 particles which are absorbed to the wide orifice of an intestinal 

 organ, which descends perhaps in a convolution, below, and 

 returns again to terminate in an excretory canal under the site 

 of the tentacula. Probably the whole race of Cristatellce is 

 distinguished by a similar conformation. 



The polypus is a very vivacious animal, quickly retreating for 

 security when alarmed, and rising to expand in activity. Though 

 each be endowed with independent Hfe, sensation, and all the 

 motions that can be exercised without actual transition, the 

 whole are subjected to the vohtion of the sluggish mass in re- 

 spect to progression:— They are borne along with it. 

 ^ A specimen having been cut transversely asunder, each por- 

 tion seemed to recede by common consent ; but both survived, 

 as if sustaining no injury. Neither is any polypus affected by 

 the violence offered in its vicinity. 



_ Twenty, thirty, or more lenticular substances, of considerable 

 size and in the most irregular arrangement, imbedded in the 

 flesh, are exposed through the translucent green of the animal. 

 Its death and decomposition towards the end of autumn Hberate 

 them to float in the water. Subjected to the microscope, or, 

 indeed, to the naked eye, their convex surfaces prove brown, 

 the circumference yellow, and begirt with a row of spines' 

 terminating in double hooks. Each is an ovum of the Cris. 

 tatella, with a hard shell, and occupied by yellowish fluid con- 

 tents. 



In five or six months the ovum gapes at one side to allow the 

 protrusion of an originating polypus, which by a remarkable 

 provision of Nature now floats reversed, with the head down- 

 wards, to ensure absorption of the liquid element below. On 



