366 EVENmGS AT THE MICKOSCOPE. 



we will look for one of another kind among the 

 gronp. 



Here is a pretty and interesting species. Active 

 it is, but less vigorously rapid in its movements, than 

 either the Bero6 or the Sarsia. It is, as you see, 

 sometliing less than a hemisphere, or resembling 

 watch-glass in shape, about three-fourths of an inch in 

 diameter. In general character it resembles the Sarsia^ 

 but the peduncle is small, never reaching to the level 

 of the margin, and its mouth is terminated by four 

 expanding fleshy lips, which are extremely flexible 

 and versatile. 



The four radiating vessels here cany, just before 

 they merge into the marginal canal, a dilatation of 

 the common flesh, which, as you see, bulges out the 

 surface of the umbrella. We M'ill examine one of these 

 dilatations with the microscope. 



It is, as you perceive, occupied by a number ot 

 clear globes, each of which has another minute globose 

 body in its interior. They are very diverse in size, 

 some being very small, others comparatively large, 

 and it is to the dimensions of these latter that the 

 swelling of the surface of the umbrella is due. These 

 vesicles are the eggs of the animal considerably ad- 

 vanced towards maturity ; and the dilatations around 

 the radiating vessels are the ovaries. 



The margin, however, presents us with the most 

 obvious, and perhaps the most interesting, points of 

 diversity from the little Sarsia. In the little beauty 

 before us — whose name, by the way, Thaximantias pi- 

 losella, I have not yet told you — the outline is fringed 

 with about fifty short and slender tentacles, each of 

 which springs from a fleshy bulb, in which is set a speck 



