MOSS-ANIMALS. 



425 



-yielding winter-germs. The colony produced from the winter-buds may, however, 

 continue for some time to multiply sexually, but in autumn again produces stato- 

 blasts. These processes taken together, namely, the growth of a Bryozoan colony 

 by means of the budding of one individual out of another, the detachment of the 

 winter-buds in Paludicella, the formation of the statoblasts, and the appearance of 

 eggs, well illustrate the close connection existing between growth and reproduction. 



a, Cristatdla (double the nat. size) ; b, statoblasts op Cristatella, with theee young animals (enlarged). 



Subclass Endoprocta. 



Systematists have hitherto found themselves compelled to add to the Bryozoa, 

 or moss -animals, certain genera whose most striking peculiarity is that the 

 posterior aperture of the alimentary canal lies within the tentacle-crown. These 

 have been called Endoprocta, in contradistinction to the Ectoprocta, in which, 

 as we have seen, the aperture of the intestine (c in the illustration on p. 

 420) lies outside the tentacle-crown. We take, as an example of the Endoprocta, 

 the genus Loxosoma, which might well be called the spoon-animal, since, not 

 only in Loxosoma cochlear, represented in the illustration on p. 426, but in 

 most other species as well, the side view, especially when the tentacles are with- 

 drawn, strikingly recalls a ladle. The body is attached to a stalk, and its anterior 

 portion carries a circle of from eight to twelve tentacles, provided with double 

 rows of long cilia. The mouth is at the lower edge of the disc which carries the 

 feelers, while the posterior aperture of the digestive tract lies somewhat above 

 the middle of the disc. The thick stalk is well provided with muscles, and is 

 attached by means of its foot or sucker-like end, to the point chosen by the animal, 

 so as to be fixed by the probably viscid secretion of a large pedal gland. The 

 whole animal is more or less transparent, and leads a retired life in the sea, often 

 hidden in the cavities of horny sponges. Although capable of slow locomotion, 

 Loxosoma appears seldom to move from the place once chosen. It feeds on micro- 

 scopic particles, brought by the stream of water kept up in the cavities of the 

 sponge it inhabits. This food is conducted to the mouth by the cilia of the tentacles 

 and by a ciliated furrow round the tentacle disc. The method of reproduction of this 

 animal is remarkable. Two lateral buds are seen on the mother in the illustration 

 on p. 426.- The young animals quickly and without any metamorphosis attain the 

 iorm of the parent, and may, even while attached to her, feed independently, only 

 falling off when mature, and becoming attached in her neighbourhood. This is 



