26 DEVELOPMENT OF 



CHAPTER II. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CLAVIFORM POLYPES. 



(COBYNE, SyNCORYNB, CoHTMOBPHA, CAMPiLNULAHIA.) 



Tab. I. figs. 41-57. 



I HAVE perhaps occupied much tune with the Me- 

 dusa, but I have thought it necessary to do so in that 

 instance, where the facts present themselves in greater 

 abundance, in order that the basis upon which they are 

 estabhshed, and the deductions to be made from them, 

 might appear with all the distinctness which they seem 

 to me to possess. In this chapter, in which I am desirous 

 of proving the existence of a similar course of develop- 

 ment in another perhaps not less numerous family of 

 marine animals, I am unfortunately compelled to be more 

 brief. What I have been able to collect in this instance, 

 will probably be regarded with respect to the object I 

 have in view, as very little ; I think, however, that even 

 in this little, as in the sketch of a pictm^e not yet filled 

 up, what the whole probably may be, will be not indis- 

 tinctly discerned, when the necessary parts belonging to 

 it, and as yet deficient, are supplied. 



The creatures which I am now considering are the 

 claviform polypes {Coryne) and the forms allied to them. 

 These animals have afforded much ground for speculation 

 to naturalists, especially with regard to the real natm-e of 

 the bodies, at first tubercular and afterwards bell-shaped, 

 which arise at the base of the more or less clavate polype 

 head, (fig. 41.) 



