THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS OF THE ALCYONARIA. 300 
to materially increase their size and to impart to them a red 
colour (figs. 2—4). The dorsal filaments were observed to 
take no part in the digestive function.! 
This particular colony was fed five times between 11 a.m. 
and 7.30 p.m., and was then fixed and preserved in a fairly 
expanded condition (fig. 1) by the hot formalin method. All 
the colonies which had been fed with the coloured fish food 
were found to be in a healthy condition at the end of the 
experiments, which lasted fourteen days. 
Several colonies, kept in tanks of running but unfiltered 
sea water, were submitted to the same treatment. After 
three days the anthocodie of these colonies were observed 
to be slightly swollen, and were apparently less sensitive to 
contact than their neighbours in filtered sea water, and, 
although expanded, refused to feed. The swollen condition 
increased; on the sixth day the colonies were fully twice 
their former size, and were found to be almost insensible to 
contact. Preserved sections of these colonies were found to 
be quite useless for histological purposes. 
In his account of the Oban Pennatulida, Marshall (1882) 
remarks upon the swollen condition and loss of sensitive 
power of specimens in captivity, and states that, as the 
Pennatulids inhabit deep water, the swollen condition is due 
to a difference in pressure. All the specimens of Aleyonium 
which exhibited this condition, however, were taken from 
shallow water, many of the colonies being exposed at low 
tide, while three specimens from forty fathoms, and kept in 
filtered sea water, remained in a normal condition for several 
days. The swollen and insensible condition in Aleyonium 
is doubtless pathological, and is quite independent of either 
increase or decrease in pressure.” 
1 By feeding greenish-brown specimens of Anemonia sulcata oncarmined 
fish food they gradually acquired a pinkish hue, which at the end of fourteen 
days was intense. The specimens apparently suffered no inconvenience 
from this mode of diet, and seemed to be quite healthy and vigorous at the 
conclusion of the experiment. 
2 W. May (1899, p. 44) describes a new species of Clavularia, which he 
names C, inflata because of its swollen and bloated appearance. As it 
