ZOOPHYTES. 277 



cilia are busily in motion, turning round and round 

 the swallowed victim, urging it along until it 

 reaches the stomach, where its struggles end." In 

 a common-sized specimen of this hornwrack, at 

 least 36,000 living beings have been computed to 

 exist, each actively and rapidly vibrating the cilia 

 which covers the tentacles. Nor is this all : this 

 Flustra is often the point of attachment to other 

 corallines, minute threads which creep over its 

 surface, or crowd upon it in dense little tufts, or 

 cover it with a mossy-looking substance, like a 

 coating of down. Every filament, there, has cells 

 containing living creatures, each perfect in its 

 structure, and no less highly organized than the 

 polypes of the sea-mat. Many persons, to whom 

 this hornwrack is familiar, have observed its 

 peculiar odour, and, when the polypidom is newly 

 thrown up from the waters, it is often very plea- 

 sant. Pallas compares its scent to that of the 

 orange ; Dr. Grant, to the perfume of violets ; and 

 another writer describes it as mingling the per- 

 fumes of the rose and geranium. This latter 

 description seems to the author to convey the best 

 idea of the odour, such at least as she has found 

 it ; but it is probable that it may vary in different 

 specimens, and she has sometimes picked up a 

 dozen pieces, in not one of which any pleasant 

 perfume was apparent, while some of them had a 

 strong and disagreeable fishy odour. This horn- 

 wrack has been called Duck's-foot Conferva, and 

 Curious sea-weed. A writer in London's Maga- 

 zine of Natural History, remarked of it, that, on 

 exposure to the fire, it emits " a powerful acid 

 smell, similar to that of lemons." The author has 

 subjected many specimens to this experiment, and 



