THE "GENERAL MORPHOLOGY" 175 



from the curved upper part. At the edge of the 

 curved surface are many long fibrils that close on 

 the approaching prey and paralyse it by their 

 sting. Then it thrusts it into its mouth and 

 swallows the object into the stomach. The 

 medusa is, of course, a very lowly creature, but 

 it is much more advanced in organisation than 

 the tiny radiolarian. The radiolarian consists of a 

 single cell. The medusa is a cell-state, a commu- 

 nity of countless cells with a division of labour 

 amongst them. Some of the cells form the wall 

 of the bell, some the stinging threads, some the 

 devouring and digesting stomach. In this the 

 medusa comes nearer to man than the radiolarian. 

 Some of the cells see to the reproduction of the 

 medusa. Ova and spermatozoa are detached from 

 the cell-community of the medusa's body, blend 

 together, and thus form the germ of a new 

 medusa. In most cases the process is curious 

 enough. From the germ-cell we get at first, not 

 a real medusa, but a polyp that attaches itself to 

 the ground, a little creature that may be remotely 

 compared to the pretty water-lilies that meet the 

 eye in an aquarium. Then the polyp produces 

 something like a plant that grows buds, the real 

 medusae ; it may produce these out of its sub- 

 stance as buds, and they then float away like 

 detached flowers, or (in other species) it may 

 gradually change itself into a chain of medusae, 

 of which the uppermost is detached first, then the 

 next, and so on. 



Since this peculiar method of reproduction 



