128 PROFESSOR E. RAY LANKESTER, 
The substance filling the vacuoles (e) is apparently identical 
with the substance filling the numerous oval spaces of the bodies 
(66). At the same time there can be little doubt, from the 
comparison of the prepared specimens with the living, that the 
vacuoles are food vacuoles, viz. spaces into which solid food 
materials have been taken and digested. Accordingly the material 
which they contain is an albuminous substance resulting from 
the digestion of those food particles. 
From these considerations it seems not improbable that the 
pink substance of the bodies (4) is also an albuminous substance 
resulting from digestive activity. 
I submit as suggestions for further examination, when the 
histology and physiology of the endodorm is attempted in other 
Meduse, that these bodies (0) are either points at which numer- 
ous small food particles have been incepted and digested by the 
protoplasm, or, what is more probable, that they are portions of 
the protoplasm of this remarkable meshwork which are espe- 
cially active in “working up” the products of intra-cellular 
digestion, and that they periodically discharge the albuminous 
product of digestion and elaboration into the gastric chamber, 
whence it passes into the radial canals and marginal canal to 
nourish the outstanding parts of the organism. 
That albuminous substances in a digested state must pass 
into these canals, either in this way or as the result of the diges- 
tion of a portion of the food by juices secreted into the gastric 
cavity, appears obvious when the limited number and area of the 
intra-cellularly digestive cells is considered. 
Projecting into the spaces (/) of the meshwork are pseudopo- 
dia-like processes (c¢ in figs. 1 and 2, Plate 1X); these are not 
only given off from the larger masses of cell-substances, but 
appear to spread along the fibro-laminar trabecule (@) of the 
meshwork, and whilst clothing the trabecule, and often project- 
ing from them into the inter-cellular spaces, also keep the 
protoplasm of neighbouring masses in continuity. 
Just as in the oral-gastric endoderm, two very different con- 
ditions of nourishment and activity were observed, so here in the 
endoderm of the proximal end of the gastric tube—which I will 
call the ingestive endoderm—there were two very different con- 
ditions which came under my observation. The two conditions 
of the ingestive endoderm were definitely related to the two con- 
ditions of the oral endoderm, When the oral endoderm pre- 
sented the condition of abundant large secretion cells filling up 
the inter-cellular spaces (Plate IX, fig. 3), then the ingestive 
endoderm had the appearance just described (Plate IX, figs. 1 
and 2). It was active in throwing out pseudopodia into the 
large inter-cellular spaces, and was feeding upon the small 
