PHOXICHILIDIUM COCCINEUM. 131 
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, assuming for the sake 
of argument, that the young animal desired admittance through 
the polypary, and endeavoured in its humble way, to gain an 
entrance by means of its foot-jaws: such a view will, I think, be 
admitted to be utterly unlikely. So far then as I can see, in the 
absence of a better, we must at present content 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 ccenosare, doubtless makes the most of its foot-jaws, 
and commences a search for a suitable “ locale.” To the instinct 
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 circum- 
stances of the growth of the Coryne may assist us in understand- 
ing 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- 
