ANEMONES AND CORALS 49 



the Comb-bearers ; they are all produced from eggs, and the 

 movements of the young can be seen long before they escape 

 from the egg. 



Other interesting examples of the Ctenophorae are the hand- 

 some Venus' s Girdle (Cestus Veneris), a long, slender, ribbon- 

 shaped form, which may attain a length of several feet, and is a 

 delicate blue colour ; and the little rosy tinted, cylindrical bodied, 

 wide mouthed Biroe. 



The Anthozoa * include the Sea Anemones, Corals, Sea-fans 

 and Sea-pens, and those curious, fleshy-looking masses some- 

 times seen thrown up on the shore, and popularly called " Dead 

 Men's Fingers." The Anthozoa are divided into two orders, the 

 Zoantharia, with the tentacles and mesenteries in sixes, to which 

 the Sea Anemones and the majority of the Corals belong ; and 

 the Alcyonaria (with eight mesenteries and eight tentacles), 

 to which belong the beautiful Red Coral, the Organ-pipe Coral, 

 the Sea-fans and Sea-pens. All are more or less familiar, beau- 

 tiful objects, well deserving from their external appearance the 

 name of flower-animals or Anthozoa. They are dwellers in the 

 sea, or in a few cases in brackish water, and are usually brilliant 

 in colour, many of the Sea Anemones when fully expanded look- 

 ing like gloriously tinted daisies and dahlias. 



The individuals are formed on the same general lines as the 

 polyps of the Hydrozoa, but with certain important differences, 

 chiefly as regards internal structure. Thus the mouth does not 

 communicate at once with a sac-like stomach, but first leads into 

 a short tube or gullet, which is connected below with the walls 

 of the main digestive cavity or stomach by a radially arranged 

 series of fleshy projections or partitions, called the mesenteries, 

 in which the sexual cells (sperms and ova) are developed. The 

 chambers between the partitions communicate with each other 

 and with the hollow tentacles. Below the gullet the free edges 

 of the mesenteries are thickened to form digestive organs known 

 as mesenteric filaments. When the sexual cells are ripe, they 

 are discharged into the stomach cavity, and then pass by way of 

 the mouth into the surrounding water. 



It will be seen, therefore, that the Anthozoa differ from the 



1 Anthozoa Greek, anthos, a flower, and zoon, an animal. The term Actinozoa is 

 also applied to this division of the Co?lenterates, and is derived from the Greek, 

 aktis, a ray, and zoon, an animal. 



