Objects for the Microscope 173 



free from obnoxious particles. If, however, the observer is 

 at the sea-side, whilst examining a living Membranipora, he 

 may look for the singular organ described by Dr. Farre and 

 by the Rev. T. Hincks. It is oblong, placed between the 

 base of two of the arms, and attached to the tentacular 

 ring. Round the opening at top is a play of cilia, and it is 

 lined with cilia. These gentlemen observed numbers of 

 filamentous bodies wriggling up from the visceral cavity, and 

 as they reached the base of this organ, they were drawn into, 

 carried upward through the ciliated channel, and ejected, 

 being then whirled away by the tentacular currents. These 

 are supposed to be spermatozoic bodies called cercarire, and 

 subservient in some way to the function of generation. 



Besides Mebranipora, I would direct attention to various 

 species of Lepralia. Scarcely a stone or a shell from the 

 great deep but yields most varied forms of these zoophytes. 

 In the Channel Islands, Jersey, by Mrs. Gatty, of Eccles- 

 field, Guernsey, on Pkylophora rubens, and also at Sidmouth, 

 the loveliest species called 



LEPRALIA GATTY^E, 



may be found in winter thrown up after a storm, exceeding 

 small a little branching speck, once seen never forgotten, 

 differing from all other Lepralia in having a rich pattern 

 carved upon the centre of each cell. A raised knob and 

 a circlet of dots, then rays or raised lines, between each of 

 which is to be found a dot or puncture larger in size than 

 those of the other circle ; again, the termination of each 

 cell is delicately fluted, that is, if not overcrowded with cells 

 or ovarian capsules. In all Lepralia we find round, pearly, 

 smaller cells, dotted over the surface, sometimes almost 

 hiding the parent cells ; these are most abundant on the 

 pretty 



LEPRALIA HYALINA, 



common on mussel-shells. 



LEPRALIA NITIDA 



is like a miniature human thorax, ribbed and with a broad 

 band representing the sternum ; a lip armed with five long 



