ZOOPHYTES 375- 



neck, and then expanding into a sort of secondary disk, 

 of a square form, with the angles rounded. This organ, 

 which is capable of varied, precise, and energetic motions, 

 corresponds to the peduncle of a true Medusa, the angles 

 being the lips. These lips, which correspond in their di- 

 rection to the four internal ridges, are very protrusile, and 

 when the little animal is active are continually being thrust 

 out in various directions, sometimes everted, but more com- 

 monly made to approach each other in different degrees; 

 sometimes one being bent-in toward the centre, sometimes 

 all closing-up around a hollow interior. These four lobes, 

 thus perpetually in motion, and changing within certain 

 limits their form and their relation to each other, remind 

 one of the lips or the tongues of more highly organized 

 animals. The substance of this peduncle appears to be 

 delicately granular; but there is a very manifest tendency 

 to a fibrous character in its texture, the fibres being di- 

 rected from the exterior toward the interior, supposing the 

 lobes to have their points in contact. 



Let us now look at the margin of the disk. Here are 

 attached twenty-four slender tentacles, six in each quad- 

 rant formed by the divergent ribs, or radiating canals. 

 Each tentacle springs from a thickened bulb, which is 

 imbedded in the margin of the disk; it is evidently tubu- 

 lar, but the tube is not wider in the bulb than in the fila- 

 ment. The general surface is rough with projecting points, 

 which in some assume a very regular muricate appearance, 

 and the tentacle terminates in a blunt point. The discal 

 part of the bulb is fringed with a row of minute bead- like 

 spherules. Around the edge of the circumference of the 

 disk, on the exterior, are arranged eight beautiful and 

 conspicuous auditory vesicles. They are placed in pairs, 



