378 POLYZOA INFUNDIBULATA. 



filled apparently with a granular fluid in a recent state, and loaded 

 with cells, which, although sometimes solitary and scattered, are usually 



Fig. 71 



collected in irregular clusters aggregated on one side, and leaving the 

 opposite side of the branch nearly bare of them. In specimens pre- 

 served in spirits the shape of the cells varies, arising partly from 

 their different ages, and partly from the extent to which the polype 

 has sunk and contracted within them at the moment of immersion : 

 they are thus either obtusely conoid, ovate, pear-shaped, oblong or 

 subcylindrical, sessile and contracted at the base. 



I add the descriptions of those authors who have observed the spe- 

 cies in a living state. 



" Stem simple, slightly branched, partly creeping, partly erect : cells 

 ovate, lengthened, with the mouths slightly compressed quadrangu- 

 larly, scattered over the stem in irregular groups. Before the po- 

 lype is evolved, the cell is closed at the distal extremity by a coni- 

 cal covering. Polypi with ten tentacula, finely ciliated : they extend 

 considerably beyond the mouths of the cells, to the margins of which 

 each is attached by a membrane, which is protruded before the tenta- 

 cula when the polype is about to expand itself. When alarmed, it con- 



