184 ANTHOZOA HELIANTHOIDA. 



of Helianthoida can protrude the stomach beyond the lip in 

 the form of large bladder-like lobes, which often hang over 

 the sides and almost conceal the rest of the body ; and amidst 

 them there are very frequently extruded at the same time 

 some white filaments, like bundles of ravelled thread, which 

 have escaped through a circular opening in the bottom of 

 the stomachal membrane. The space between the walls of 

 this organ and the outer envelope is divided into numerous 

 narrow compartments by perpendicular and parallel lamellae 

 of a musculo-tendinous texture, which extend from the oral 

 disk to the base, and radiate to the centre like the gills of a 

 mushroom to its stalk. a comparison the more exact as some 

 only of the lamellae reach and touch the stomach, the rest 

 coming more or less short, and forming consequently imperfect 

 interseptal spaces. " The breadth of the leaflets varies con- 

 siderably, some extending scarcely a line from their external 

 attachment, others reaching as far as the stomach, being 

 nearly half an inch in breadth. The height generally corre- 

 sponds with the height of the animal ; a few, however, of the 

 narrowest leaflets extending upwards from the base, terminate 

 obliquely in the sides, without being prolonged as high as to 

 the lip or roof.' 1 * These lamellae are of a muscular character, 

 and by their actions cause the body to assume its various 

 forms. The spaces between them are filled 1st, with the ova- 

 ries attached, in elongated masses, to the inner border of most 

 of the leaflets ; and 2dly, with the " vermiform filaments " 

 which, as already mentioned, are often extruded at the mouth. 

 These filaments are capillary, greatly convoluted, smooth and 

 of a white colour, with a sort of mesentery extended along 

 one side. Their appearance naturally suggests the idea of 

 their being either the intestines or the oviducts of the crea- 

 ture ; and they have been often described as ovarian, even by 

 late authors,f but Mr. Teale has fully shewn the erroneousness 



Teale in Trans. Leeds' Soc. i. 96. 



f " Entre ce sac interieur (the stomach) et la peau exterieure, est une organisa- 

 tion assez compliquee, mais encore obscure, consistant surtout en feuillets verticaux 

 et fibreux, auxquels adherent les ovaires, semblables a des fils tres entortilles." 

 Cuvier, Reg. Anim. iii. p. 290. Delle Chiaje in Bull, des Sc. Nat. xvii. 471. See 

 also J. R. Jones in Cyclop, of Anat. and Physiol. ii. 409. Sharpey describes them 

 as oviducts. Cyclop, cit. i. 614. Dicquemare had a singular notion that they 



