216 THE CILIARY DISK. 



moment after they were detached from the rock (a 

 piece of stone being chiselled off) and put into a 

 phial of clear water. The crown of arching tentacles 

 was much more elevated than I had yet seen it, the 

 tips only being incurved ; and the floating atoms 

 were ever and anon shot forcibly from out the disk. 

 Some excellent views with the microscope enable me 

 to correct and augment my observations. The ten- 

 tacles are nearly square in section, or slightly grooved 

 down the back. Their bases interiorly may be traced 

 a good way down the funnel. The marginal part of 

 the disk that surrounds and connects their bases is 

 like a hyaline web, marked with close-set concentric 

 lines or wrinkles. The lateral ciliary current of 

 each tentacle runs down until it meets a strongly- 

 marked ring of cilia, set round the funnel a little 

 below the origin of the tentacles, and it was interest- 

 ing to see in a vertical aspect each individual current 

 merge into this great vortex. The walls of the fun- 

 nel below this circle are more thick and opaque, and 

 are perhaps muscular and endowed with the power of 

 various contraction; like the oesophageal funnel in 

 Stephanoceros, &c. Two that I counted had each 

 fifteen tentacles. 



They associate with other Polypes. In this intsance 

 PedicelUna, Anguinaria spatulata^ and Bowerhankia 

 imhricata, had all entwined their creeping steems to- 

 gether around the CrisiUj which was also intermingled 

 with Crisidia cornuta. 



When the tentacles are much extended and expan- 

 ded, the resemblance to some conditions of Stephaif- 

 oceros is very striking, and they are every instant 



