PEDICELLATA. 341 
Species of these two last forms are found in European seas. Their 
mouth is surrounded with ramous tentacula like that of the Holo- 
thuriz, 
Hoxornurtia, Lin. 
The Holothuriz have an oblong coriaceous body open at each end. 
At the anterior extremity is the mouth, surrounded with complica- 
ted tentacula susceptible of being entirely retracted. At the oppo- 
site end is the aperture of a cloaca in which the rectum and organ 
of respiration terminate, the latter in the form of an extremely 
ramified hollow tree, which is filled with water, or emptied, at the 
will of the animal. The mouth is edentate, or merely furnished 
with a circle of bony pieces; it receives saliva from certain sac-like 
appendages. The intestine is very long, variously flexed, and at- 
tached to the sides of the body by a mesentery; there is a sort of 
partial circulation in an extremely complex and double system of 
vessels, entirely restricted to the intestinal canal, and in a portion 
of the meshes with which one of the two arborescent organs above- 
mentioned is intertwined. There also appears to be a very attenu- 
ated nervous cord round the esophagus. The ovary is composed 
of a multitude of blind and partly ramous vessels, all terminating 
in the mouth by a small common oviducts at the period of gestation 
they become enormously distended, and are filled with a red and 
grumous substance that appears to be the ova. Excessively exten- 
sible strings, inserted near the anus, appear to constitute the male 
organs of generation, and consequently, these animals are hermaph- 
rodites. When disturbed, it frequently happens that they contract 
so violently as to rupture and protrude their intestines(1). 
The Holothuriz may be divided according to the arrangement of 
their feet. 
In some, they are all situated in the middle of the under part of 
the body, that forms a softer disk on which the animal crawls, 
turning up the two extremities, in which are the head and anus, that 
are narrower than the middle. The anus in particular terminates 
almost ina point. Their tentacula, when developed, are very large. 
H. phantapus, L.3; Miill., Zool. Dan., CXXII, CXXIII, 
Stockh. Mem., 1767. The envelope almost squamous; the feet 
* 
we should probably refer several of the shells united under Leh, lacunosus, such 
as Seb., Il], x, 21; Encyc., 156, 7, 8. 
(1) For the anatomy of the Holothurie, see the excellent work of M. Tiede- 
mann already quoted. 
