ale Miscellaneous. 
cord clavate buds alternating with those of the arms. These buds, 
taking a direction downwards and outwards, soon reach the integu- 
ments. The latter become inflated and elongated over them, and 
then these various parts, growing together, finally constitute a cirrus. 
The cirri consequently have no true homology with the arms; they 
originate from the central cord of the peduncle, and the arms from 
the five peripheral cords. At this age there is no trace of a vascular 
apparatus, and the axial organ retains very nearly the histological 
structure of the ovoid organ of the preceding phase. 
3. At the moment when the young Comatula becomes detached 
the digestive tube has formed new folds around the axial organ. 
The hydrophorous tubes have considerably increased in number ;_ but 
we observe the same relations between them and the canals which 
traverse the wall of the body to open externally. The axial organ 
has still the exclusively cellular structure which it has constantly 
presented up to this point; but its walls bend inwards into rolled 
lamelle which pretty closely remind one of the arrangement of the 
sand-canal of the starfishes. This organ terminates below in a 
conical tube, which, constantly narrowing, penetrates into the axis 
of the chambered organ. 
The trabecule of connective tissue of the general cavity are very 
numerous, and some of. them which are attached to the envelope of 
the axial organ might be taken for vessels, but there exists nothing 
that can be designated by that name. Through the vacant spaces 
which exist between these trabecule there run a few solid cellular 
cords which indirectly pass to the arms. The cellular tissue which 
envelopes the chambered organ is extremely thick and has quite 
the aspect of a tissue engaged in rapid multiplication. This tissue 
is produced into the centre of the calcareous axis of the arms, 
and already presents all those connexions which we have formerly 
described with the muscular tissue and the connective tissue of the 
arms. 
To sum up, at this age the pores which place the general cavity 
in communication with the exterior may be regarded as the orifices 
of hydrophorous tubes, with which they are connected at once by 
their number and position; these tubes, perhaps homologous with 
those of the Holothurians, by no means correspond to the sand-canal 
of the other Echinodermata ; this sand-canal, on the contrary, seems 
to be represented by the axial organ of the Comatule, which pos- 
sesses at once the structure of the sand-canal of the starfishes and 
the position of the organ of the same name in the sea-urchins. 
This organ is evidently in relation with the nutrition of the cirri, 
the origin and nature of which are very different from those of the 
arms.—Oomptes Rendus, February 18, 1884, p. 444. 
