Mr. G. Hodge on the Development of a Species of Pycnogon. 39 
oral orifice, it has by some peculiar means escaped the common 
fate of most small animals that the polype gets hold of; and if 
it did not pass in by this aperture, how did it get in? I can see 
no other means of entrance; and when we remember that in 
many cases peculiar forms of animal life are found in the intes- 
tines and other parts of various animals of higher grades than 
those at present under consideration, to which they could only 
have gained access by the mouth of the animal they infest, and 
must therefore have been subjected to the process of digestion 
in their passage to those parts where they are found, it does 
not appear so very extraordinary that a parallel case exists 
amongst low forms of marine life. There is no other view of 
the case that I can conceive at all tenable. The polypary, from 
consisting of a strong horny envelope, would utterly defy the 
attacks of a puny animal like that under consideration, assum- 
ing, for the sake of argument, that the young animal desired 
admittance through the polypary, and endeavoured, in its hum- 
ble way, to gain an entrance by means of its foot-jaws: such a 
view will, I think, be admitted as utterly unlikely. So far then 
as I can see, in the absence of a better, we must at present con- 
tent ourselves with the opinion before expressed. 
The young Pyenogon being now within the Coryne, we will 
endeavour to trace the future stages. The little animal, once 
within the ccenosarc, doubtless makes the most of its foot-jaws, 
and commences a search for a suitable “locale.” To the in- 
stinct or other directing agency by which it is guided in this 
search, I am not prepared to allude: it is sufficient if we take 
it for granted that it does move freely along the tube of the 
polypary ; whether by accident or instinct, it matters not. A 
glance into the circumstances of the growth of the Coryne may 
assist us in understanding the fact of the Pycnogon being found 
in a sac, without doubt produced by this Zoophyte. 
The Coryne, at the time the larval forms may be expected to 
gain an entrance, from being of humble growth, as before men- 
tioned, would not possess many polypes; numbers would, how- 
ever, be in course of production. So far as I know, the growth 
of these polypes results from a branch springing from a stem, at 
first short and rounded at the free end; the rounded portion, 
however, changes its character from a thin investing membrane 
(or membranes) into a “fleshy head” or polype, at first rudi- 
mentary, but capable of producing its several parts. During 
the period that these short rounded branches exist, and before 
they have begun to assume the polype-character, a young Pyc- 
nogon enters one of them, having made a journey from the 
polype by which it entered, along “the coenosarcal tube of the 
oryne ; arrived at the end) there it remains to mature, and, by 
