280 Professor Owen on Collecting 



Instructions for Collecting and Preserving Invertebrate Ani- 

 mals. By Richard Owen, F.R.S., Hunterian Professor to 

 the Royal College of Surgeons of England. 



As water is the element in which the greater number of the 

 classes of animals exist, and as the sea is the scene of such exist- 

 ence, and the field of research which will be most commonly pre- 

 sented to those for whom the following instructions for collecting 

 and preserving animals have been drawn up, they will commence 

 with the marine species, and the lowest forms of animal life. 



Algm, Sponges, Corallines, and Corals. 



The line of demarcation between the vegetable and animal kins- 

 doms is so obscurely marked in the lowly organised marine species, 

 and the modes of collecting and preserving these are so similar, that 

 the kindred groups above named are associated together as the sub- 

 jects of the following remarks. 



Algce, commonly called sea-weeds, may be divided, for the con- 

 venience of the collector, into three kinds, according to their co- 

 lour : — 



1. Olive-coloured (_Fiict), generally of large size and leathery 

 texture, rarely gelatinous ; usually laminate or leafy, rarely fila- 

 mentous or thready. 



2. Red-coloured (^FloridecB), firm, fleshy, or gelatinous ; usually 

 filamentous, sometimes membranaceous. 



3. Green (Chlorosperms), membranaceous or filamentous ; rarely 

 horny. 



Sponges are bodies usually adherent in irregular or amorphous 

 masses, rarely in the form of hollow reticulate cones ; composed of a 

 soft, jelly-like tissue, supported by siliceous or calcareous spiculee, 

 or by horny filaments. They are divided, accordingly, into horny, 

 or " keratose," siliceous and " calcareous" sponges. Their soft, or- 

 ganic substance is commonly diffluent, and drops from the firmer 

 basis, when removed from the water, or it is easily washed away. 

 It exhibits no signs of sensibility ; no contraction or retraction when 

 touched or otherwise stimulated. The evidence of life is afforded, as 

 in the corallines and algsc, by the flow of currents of water through 

 canals, entering by pores, and in the sponges escaping by larger ori- 

 fices ; and an appearance of animal life is given to both algae and 

 sponges by the locomotion of the sporules or gemmules. 



Corallines are plants coated with a calcareous covering, either red 

 or green when fresh, becoming white and brittle on exposure to the 

 air. 



Corals, though called " zoophytes," are true animals ; the cur- 



