FALKLAND ISLANDS 



a triangular hood, with a beautifully-fitted trap-door, which evi- 

 dently answered to the lower mandible. In the greater number 

 of species, each cell was provided with one head, but in others 

 each cell had two. 



The young cells at the end of the branches of these corallines 

 contain quite immature polypi, yet the vulture-heads attached to 

 them, though small, are in every respect perfect. When the 

 polypus was removed by a needle from any of the cells, these 

 organs did not appear in the least affected. When one of the 

 vulture-like heads was cut off from a cell, the lower mandible 

 retained its power of opening and closing. Perhaps the most 

 singular part of their structure is, that when there were more 

 than two rows of cells on a branch, the central cells were fur- 

 nished with these appendages, of only one-fourth the size of the 

 outside ones. Their movements varied according to the species ; 

 but in some I never saw the least motion ; while others, with the 

 lower mandible generally wide open, oscillated backwards and 

 forwards at the rate of about five seconds each turn ; others 

 moved rapidly and by starts. When touched with a needle, the 

 beak generally seized the point so firmly that the whole branch 

 might be shaken. 



These bodies have no relation whatever with the production 

 of the eggs or gemmules, as they are formed before the young 

 polypi appear in the cells at the end of the growing branches ; 

 as they move independently of the polypi, and do not appear to 

 be in any way connected with them ; and as they differ in size 

 on the outer and inner rows of cells, I have little doubt that in 

 their functions they are related rather to the horny axis of the 

 branches than to the polypi in the cells. The fleshy append- 

 age at the lower extremity of the sea-pen (described at Bahia 

 Blanca) also forms part of the zoophyte, as a whole, in the same 

 manner as the roots of a tree form part of the whole tree, and 

 not of the individual leaf or flower-buds. 



In another elegant little coralline (Crisia?) each cell Wcis 

 furnished with a long-toothed bristle, which had the power of 

 moving quickly. Each of these bristles and each of the vulture- 

 like heads generally moved quite independently of the others, but 

 sometimes all on both sides of a branch, sometimes only those 

 on one side, moved together coinstantaneously ; sometimes each 

 moved in regular order one after another. In these actions we 



