BUDS OF CEPHALODISCUS HODGSONI. 61 
when nearly of full size, separates from the parent by severance at the distal end of 
its stalk from the end of the parent stolon, and is now in the position of the parent 
individual referred to in the beginning of this paragraph. Sometimes the parting 
from the parent individual is delayed until the seceding bud has developed a second 
bud of its own. 
What happens to the parent polypide when its two buds have departed can 
hardly be determined except by tracing the process of budding in a living colony. 
Possibly it produces young buds at the same rate as the old buds separate off, so 
that the number of buds on the parent stolon is maintained at two. If this be so, 
there is less reason for doubting that @ in fig. 84 is the parent stolon, and / its 
recently formed bud. 
What are the conditions which determine whether or no a parent stolon or a 
bud-stalk shall constrict and divide at its middle, or at its proximal end, are 
difficult to conceive. The acceptance of Harmer’s view that the individuals so 
liberated are “degenerated” is hardly possible in view of the healthy appearance 
of the polypides shown in figs. 80 and 82; yet what became of the stolon- 
less polypides and stalkless buds after their separation by this method is a 
mystery, for no such individuals have been encountered in the course of the 
investigation. Since in the whole animal kingdom it is so very unusual for 
sexual reproduction and vegetative reproduction to take place simultaneously 
in the same body, may one conjecture that sexually reproducing polypides first 
cast off their vegetatively produced families, together with the gemmation-tissue 
of the stolon, and become more free-living in their habits, perhaps leaving the 
colony altogether? This explanation would account for the absence of stolonless 
polypides in the mass of individuals taken from the cavities of the tubarium. 
That the constriction and division of parent stolons and bud-stalks is due to 
the convulsive contraction of certain parts of the concentric muscles at the time 
of death, is rather negatived by the perfect rounding off of the free ends of the 
sausage-like structures, and by the absence of stolonless polypides in the material 
examined. Further than this, in C. nigrescens, the sausage-shaped piece of stalk 
is sometimes found with buds at its free end as well as at its basal end (figs. 69, 
71 and 78). 
Buds. 
The bud on its first appearance is ellipsoidal or ovoidal in shape (fig. 54, plate 6). 
The attached end becomes narrower, and the free end becomes flattened dorso- 
ventrally into what will later be the anterior part of the buccal shield. The 
posterior edge of the buccal shield next becomes marked out by the appearance of 
a curved groove, situated about halfway along the ventral surface of the bud, and, 
at the same time, the first pair of plume-axes develop as hemispherical swellings 
on the dorsal surface (fig. 55). The buccal shield enlarges in all directions, and 
