278 XOVEMBEK. 



bottom, and make the investigation of any one specimen 

 very difficult. These have their polype-cups of ex- 

 quisitely elegant forms, and I see on the latter many 

 of the urn-shaped vessels (now called gonotheca), out of 

 which issue what appear to be distinct and independent 

 forms of life, as unlike the parent as can well be ima- 

 gined, but exactly like the little naked-eyed Medusae 

 that we lately looked at. This, however, is not properly 

 an animal at all, but only an organ (the gonopkore) 

 which has the faculty of maintaining a separate exist- 

 ence, and which is destined to give birth to ciliated 

 embryos, like the planula of the Aurelia, that attach 

 themselves, and develop into new Gampanularice. Most 

 wonderful are the processes and phases of life which 

 have been discovered in these zoophytic forms. 1 A 

 volume might be written on them, full of praise to the 

 all-wise God. 



Now, however, we must turn aside to look at other 

 objects. Attached to the base of the Lobster-horn, we 

 find several examples of an interesting Cirripede. 2 It 

 is of a dirty buff, or drab hue, semi-transparent, in out- 

 line something like a butcher's cleaver, handle and 

 blade, or still more like a silver butter-knife, but much 



1 For details and figures of these developments, I beg to refer the reader 

 to my Naturalist's Rambles on the Devonshire Coast. 



8 Scalpellum vulgare, seen in Plate xxxr., in the position described in 

 the text. 



