Miscellaneous. 309 
what has led us to resume the study of the development and organi- 
zation of the Comatule from the moment when the larva attaches 
itself up to the adult state. Being compelled for the present to 
interrupt these investigations during my voyage on board the 
‘Talisman,’ I beg the Academy’s permission to communicate to it 
the principal results at which I think I have arrived. 
Ludwig has described, in the Comatule, a complicated circulatory 
apparatus, the centre of which is a peculiar organ, sometimes called 
the heart, sometimes the dorsal organ, and which is a vascular plexus 
corresponding to the supposed hearts of the Starfishes, Sea-Urchins, 
and Ophiuri. M. Jourdain was one of the first to express doubts 
as to the nature of the organ regarded as a heart in the Starfishes ; 
I have demonstrated that in the Sea-Urchins and Starfishes this 
organ had a glandular structure—a result which has been confirmed 
by recent researches upon the Ophiuri and the Sea-Urchins. The 
dorsal organ of the Crinoids has the same structure as the supposed 
heart of the other Echinodermata; like this it must be designated 
by the name of the ovoid gland. The vessels which appear to start 
from it are nothing but ramifications of the gland, usually termina- 
ting in dilatations having the aspect of caca. These ramifications 
run in the midst of innumerable trabecule of conjunctive tissue of 
the general cavity, which may themselves sometimes take on the 
appearance of vessels. In the Comatule, in the Pentacrinoid and 
in the Cystidean phase the ovoid gland already exists ; it is a solid 
fusiform body, passing from the oral ring to the peduncle, of which 
it continues the axial cord. This body emits no ramification ; there 
ean therefore, at this moment, be no question of a vascular appa- 
ratus. In the adult Comatula the ovoid body is implanted upon 
one of the horizontal floors of the chambered organ. 
The name given to this singular-looking organ shows that we 
know nothing of its physiological function. Nevertheless this 
function must be very important, for the chambered organ, of which 
scarcely the rudiments exist during the Cystidean phases, becomes 
developed in proportion as the Comatula acquires arms and cirri, 
and continues in connexion with all these parts by the intermedia- 
tion of fibro-cellular cords which occupy the axis of the calcareous 
part of the cirri and the arms. The determination of the nature of 
these cords may seem to determine the nature of the chambered 
organ itself. William and Herbert Carpenter see the nervous sys- 
tem in these cords; Ludwig simply designates them as fibrous cords, 
and with him the nervous system is only a simple modification of 
the epithelium of the ambulacral groove. 
I have been able to demonstrate not only that the fibro-cellular 
cords in question emit ramifications which have all the appearance 
of true nerves, as seen by W. and H. Carpenter, but also that, 
wherever muscles exist, these muscles are clearly in connexion with 
ramifications of the fibrous cord. These ramifications divide into 
a great number of threads ; their last branches terminate at stel- 
late cells, each of which is produced into a muscular fibre. Rami- 
fications of this kind are likewise connected with the fibres which 
