OCEAN LIFE. 19 



ing a simple bag within the body. It seems to be merely an ex- 

 tension of the external tegument, somewhat modified in texture. 

 It is closed inferiorly, the same orifice serving both for the intro- 

 duction of food, and the expulsion of effete, or indigestible 

 matter. On making a section of the animal, the arrangement 

 of these parts is distinctly seen the muscular integument, the 

 tentacula, formed by the same fibrous membrane and the 

 stomach, which is apparently derived from it. Between the di- 

 gestive sack, and the fibrous exterior of the body, is a consider- 

 able space, divided by a great number of perpendicular fibrous 

 partitions, into numerous compartments, which, however, freely 

 communicate with each other, and likewise with the interior of 

 the tentacula. Every tentacle is perforated, at its extremity by 

 a minute aperture, through which the sea-water is freely admit- 

 ted into these compartments, so as to bathe the interior of the 

 body ; and when, from alarm, the animal contracts itself, the 

 water, so admitted, is forcibly expelled in fine jets through the 

 holes by which it entered. There can be no doubt that the 

 surrounding fluid, thus copiously taken into the body, is the me- 

 dium by which its respiration is effected ; and every one who 

 has been in the habit of keeping Actinice in glass vessels for the 

 purpose of watching their proceedings, must have noticed, that 

 as the fluid, in which they are confined, becomes less respirable, 

 from the deficiency of air, the quantity taken into the body is 

 enormous, stretching the animal until it rather resembles an inflated 

 bladder than its original shape. It is in the compartments, which 

 are thus at the will of the creature distended with water, that 

 we find the convoluted and frilled bands which constitute the 

 ovaries, covered with cilia. The germs which are there developed 

 find their way out through a duct, which opens at one angle of 

 the mouth. The eggs found in the ovaria, are round and of a 

 yellowish color, resembling minute grains of sand. The oviger- 

 ous membrane which secretes these eggs, is, through its whole 

 extent, bathed with water, admitted into the compartments in 

 which it is lodged, a circumstance which provides for the respi- 

 ration of the ova during their development. It is a pleasing 

 sight, and one, by no means uncommon, to see five, ten, or twenty 

 young, of various sizes, but perfect in form, expelled from the 



