RADIARIES. 211 



marck thinks they do not masticate but only 

 lacerate their food ; but as two faces of each of 

 their pyramidal organs answer those of the two 

 adjoining ones, and these faces are finely and 

 transversely furrowed, 1 this looks like masticating 

 surfaces. Bosc, who appears to have seen them 

 take their food, says it consists principally of 

 young shell-fish, and small crustaceous animals ; 

 as the latter are very alert in their motions, it is 

 difficult for the sea-urchins to lay hold of them : 

 but when once one of these animals suffers itself 

 to be touched by one or two of the tentacles of 

 its enemy, it is soon seized by a great number 

 of others, and immediately carried towards the 

 mouth, the apparatus of which developing itself, 

 soon reduces it to a pulp. 



Who can say that the All-wise Creator did not 

 foresee all the situations into which this animal 

 would be thrown, so as to provide it with every 

 thing that its station and functions require ? 

 Considering its internal organization and the 

 nature of the animal itself, and that it holds a 

 middle station between the polype and the Mol- 

 luscans, in the former of which the developement 

 of muscle is very obscure, and in the latter 

 very conspicuous, and that it cannot, like the 

 former, fix itself by its base, and so support a 

 polypary, or if endued with locomotive powers 

 carry with it a heavy shell ; these things con- 



1 PLATE 111. FIG. 11. 



