THE OVARIAN THREADS. 245 



constriction. But these latter must be described 

 particulariy. 



Each of the animals, as soon as it had arrived at 

 this stage of its suicidal process, was seen to be wrap- 

 ped up in a swathiag-band of white threads, which, 

 issuing in a bundle from the rupture, soon became 

 involved in inextricable confusion by the writhings 

 and knottings of the animal. The threads were of 

 great length, and closely resembled in appearance 

 white sewing-cotton. The microscope revealed their 

 structure. They were not ciliated, and therefore had 

 no spontaneous motion, in these respects differing from 

 the convoluted filaments of the Actiniae, to which they 

 bear great af&nity. The common texture was com- 

 posed of a multitude of very minute round granules of 

 hyaline and nearly colourless jelly, about 5555 th of an 

 inch in diameter, having no motion when crushed 

 down. In this granular substance were set numerous 

 ova, ranging from -jgj-th to j^th of an inch in diameter. 

 These consisted of a hyaline integument, including an 

 opaque brown granular yelk, sometimes nearly filling 

 the interior, at others occupying not more than two 

 thirds of it. Within the yelk in each there was a 

 well-defined, globular, hyaline nucleus. On continued 

 pressure the integument burst with a start and a loud 

 crepitation ; the yelk oozed through the rupture, 

 retaining its integrity, though its elastic form changed 

 as it passed through the narrow aperture : the nucleus 

 was also compressible and elastic, escaping entire, a 

 clear globular vesicle. 



I was in hopes that this spontaneous protrusion of 

 the egg-tubes was a normal process, and that by keep- 



