356 



THE MICROSCOPE. 



of Dr. Johnston, who says "I found the name in 

 Shakspeare : 



' What wicked and dissembling glass of mine, 

 Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne ?' " 



The fancy that the glands which surround the heads 

 were the guardians of the animal, its " sphery eyne," sug- 

 gested the name here adopted. 

 These polypes are adherent by 

 a tubular fibre, and creep along 

 the surface of the object on which 

 they grow ; they are seldom 

 an inch in height, irregularly 

 branched; the stem filiform, 

 tubular, horny, sub-pellucid, 

 wrinkled, and sometimes ringed 

 at intervals, especially at the 

 origin of the branches, each of 

 which is terminated with an 

 oval or club-shaped head of a 

 reddish colour, and armed with 

 short scattered tentacula,tipped 

 with a globular apex. The ends 

 of the branches are not perfo- 

 rated, but completely covered 

 with a continuation of the horny 

 sheath of the stem. The animal 

 can bend its armed hands at 

 will, or give to any separate ten- 

 taculum a distinct motion and 

 direction; but all its move- 

 ments are very slow. 



1, Coryne Staundia, Slender m , . , . _ ~ 



Coryne. 2, A tubercle detached, ine beautliul little Coryne 



and magnified 200 diameters. stauridia, " Slender coryne," 

 (fig. 190, No. 1), is thus described by Mr. Gosse : " It was 

 found by me adhering to the footstalk of a Rhodymenia, 

 about which it creeps in the form of a white thread ; by 

 placing both beneath the microscope, this thread appeared 

 cylindrical and tubular, perfectly transparent, without 

 wrinkles, but permeated by a central core, apparently cel- 

 lular in texture, and hollow ; within which a rather slow 



Fig. 190. 



