FLUSTER AND ESCHAK^E. 317 



longitudinal rows, each of which contains about twenty-eight 

 cells in that space ; this gives 6,720 cells per square inch on each 

 surface. Now a moderate-sized polyzoary contains an area of 

 three square inches, i. e. six on both surfaces, which will give the 

 high number of 40,320 cells on such a specimen. Many, how- 

 ever, are much larger." 



Before the stormy tide detached them from the bottom of the 

 sea, and left them to perish on the shore, each of the cells con- 

 tained a living creature whose mouth was surrounded by a 

 coronet of filiform and ciliated tentacles, destined to produce 

 a vortex in the water, and thus to provide the tiny owner with 

 its food. The body was bent on itself somewhat like the letter 

 V, the one branch (a) being the mouth and throat, the other (b) 

 the rectum, opening by an anus, and the middle part (c) the 

 stomach. Each of these tiny members of the 

 flustra colony possessed a considerable number 

 of muscles ; each was furnished with a movable 

 lip or lid to block up the entrance of his 

 cell when he courted retirement ; each had 

 his individual nerves, and consequently his 

 individual sensations, though feeling and 

 moving simultaneously with his fellow citizens 

 by the agency of a system of nerves common 

 to the whole republic, , and sending forth a 

 debicate filament to the inmate of each cell. 



Such are the wonders which but for the 



, , - , . , Flustra in its cell. 



microscope would for ever nave remained (Highly magnified.) 

 unknown to man. 



The Escharse greatly resemble the Flustrse, for here also the 

 cells are disposed side by side upcn the same plane, so as to 

 form a broad leaf-like polyzoary, which, however, is not of a 

 horny or coriaceous texture, as in the latter genus, but com- 

 pletely calcified, so as to present something of the massiveness 

 of the stony corals. The annexed wood-cuts, showing us 

 Eschara cervicornis, first a, in its natural size ; then b, a few 

 cells magnified twenty diameters, and ultimately c, a single 

 individual so highly magnified as to reveal some of the details 

 of its otherwise invisible structure, give us a good idea of the 

 truly remarkable organisation of the Polyzoa. 



In the Escharse and Flustrse the cellular extension of the 



