1 1 o PHYSOPHORIDJE. PART in. 



tube of the body descends. Immediately below the air- 

 vessel, a number of buds and young bells are attached, 

 followed by a series of perfect three-lobed swimming 

 bells, placed on each side obliquely one below the other ; 

 and as they alternate and embrace the body with their 

 deeply excavated sides, they give it the appearance of a 

 crystal cone. Four canals spring from the hollow stalks 

 of the bells, traverse them, and end in a circular canal 

 close to the membranaceous iris which surrounds the 

 margin of the internal cavity. Below the cone the tubu- 

 lar body expands, and is twisted into a flat spiral, so as 

 to form a hollow disk or bulb, to which three different 

 circlets of organs are appended. The first and uppermost 

 is a coronet of red, worm-like, closed sacs, in constant 

 motion, with large thread-cells at their pointed extre- 

 mities. They are attached to the upper surface of the 

 bulb by their broad bases, and communicate with its 

 tubes by a small valve. Male and female capsules follow 

 either in a circle, or mixed with the third and under- 

 most circlet of organs, which consist of sterile nourish- 

 ing polypites, fixed by hollow stems to the bulb, each of 

 which has a long branching tentacle fixed to the base 

 of its digesting cavity. 



There are as many polypites on the under-side of the 

 bulb as there are red worm-like sacs on its upper edge. 

 Each polypite consists of three distinct parts. The 

 posterior part is a hollow red stalk inserted under the 

 circumference of the disk ; the second part is a bright 

 yellow globular expansion containing the digestive 

 cavity lined with cilia; the third and anterior part, 

 which ends with the mouth, is quite colourless and 

 transparent, and assumes various shapes by constant 

 expansion and contraction. 



At the limit between the red stalk and the yellow 

 globular part of the polypites there is a tuft of cylindri- 

 cal appendages, from which a long tentacle descends 

 with its secondary tentacles and red nettle-bulbs. All 



