258 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



several from our rocks, and again forcing the water out, I 

 obtained two specimens of a microscopic nudibrancliiate 

 mollusc, and other creatures of similar character." 



I may observe that the slight milky cloud here spoken of 

 occurred once, and only once, in my examinations, showing 

 it therefore to arise from an accidental, not a constant 

 element. " A third and a fourth experiment," continues 

 Mr Couch, " was made on others taken from our rocks in a 

 contracted state, and consequently empty. I placed them 

 in sea-water which I had repeatedly filtered through sand, 

 and afterwards cloth. In this they remained till to-day, 

 when, taking them in an expanded state, I put them to 

 drain in a small glass dish. In this I could discover nothing 

 organic, and it gave no cloudiness by nitric acid. As 

 these experiments are quite in accordance with others made 

 some years since as regards their results, I regard this fluid 

 as merely sea- water free from every admixture of secreted 

 matter." 



Nothing can be more explicit, however startling the 

 result. In the presence of such evidence, one is amazed to 

 re-read Dr Williams when he says : " Tlie surrounding water 

 enters the stomach, where it briefly sojourns, then passes 

 through the opening at the bottom of the great cavity of 

 the body : in this cavity it remains for a variable period ; 

 it now injects the tentacles. Corpuscles now arise in the 

 fluid; it becomes thicker in consistence through increase 

 of albumen : it is no longer pure lifeless sea-water ; it is 

 a corpuscidated chylaqucous fluid : it is competent to serve 

 the ends of nutrition, ^yhence do the floating ceUs proceed ? 



