378 EVENINGS AT THE MIOEOSCOPE. 



through a very narrow orifice in the centre of a horny 

 diaphragm, or sort of false bottom, which passes across 

 the bottom of eacb cell. It then dilates into a soft 

 contractile animal, whose body — but look for yourself; 

 for here, full in the field of the microscope, is one ex- 

 panding in the highest vigour and beauty. 



It is a long trumpet-shaped body of granular flesh, 

 tlie mouth of which just reaches the brim of the cup, 

 over which it spreads on all sides. From its margin 

 spring some eighteen or twenty tentacles — the exact 

 number varying in different individuals — arranged in 

 one or two close-set circles, like a crown. These or- 

 gans, which, as you see, fall into elegant double curves, 

 like the branches of a chandelier, are roughened with 

 knobbed rings, something like the horns of a goat ; this 

 structure we will presently submit to more close ex- 

 amination. 



In the midst of the space surrounded by the ten- 

 tacular crown there is protruded, at the pleasure of the 

 animal, a large, fleshy, funnel-shaped mouth, the lips 

 of which are highly sensitive and versatile, continually 

 changing their form — protruding, contracting, bending 

 in upon themselves, now closing, now opening the 

 mouth, and, as it were, testing the immediate vicinity, 

 like a very delicate organ of some unknown sense. 



The whole polype is mucli too minute for us to at- 

 tempt, with any probability of success, the amputation 

 of one of the tentacles with scissors. But by cutting 

 off a polype, cell and all, and putting it into the com- 

 pressorium, we may be able, by means of the graduated 

 pressure, to flatten the whole, and thus discern the 

 gnarled structure of the tentacles. A very high mag- 

 nifying power is needed for this. 



