222 



ACTINOZOA. 



mitana 



the funnel, which is placed very close to its own 

 extremity of the body. 



Arrangements intermediate between the two 

 extreme conditions just noticed may be traced 

 among the several genera of the lobed Cteno- 

 phora. 



Thus, in Le Sueuria, the apical extremities of 

 the eight canals curve inwards to empty them- 

 selves into the four short radiating vessels which 

 issue from the funnel. Somewhat similar is the 

 radial system in Bolina and, perhaps, in some 



species of Chiajea. But in C. Pale , 



while the four longer or antero-posterior canals 

 comport themselves much as in Le Sueuria, each 

 lateral canal, near the middle of its course, is 

 connected by a short transverse branch with the 

 extremity of one of the four short radial vessels, 

 just where it receives the curved inward prolon- 

 gation of the adjacent antero-posterior vessel. In 

 this form the apical extremities of the shorter 

 ctenophoral canals are csecal, but in Eurhamphcea, 

 whose radial system resembles that just noticed, 

 the lateral canals of each side open at an acute 

 angle into one another, at the bases of the two 



curved appendages of the apical lobes peculiar to 

 this genus. 



Comparing the preceding account with the little 

 yet known of the development of the nutrient 

 apparatus in the Ctenophora, the following con- 

 clusions seem deducible. The first formed part 

 of this apparatus seems to be that large rudiment 

 of its axial system from which, at an early period, 

 the digestive sac and funnel become differentiated. 

 From the funnel, or central portion of the whole 

 nutrient cavity, the apical canals soon branch off. 



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