4 PROF. ALLMAN OX THE 



The muscles are nearly confined to the peduncle. Only a few 

 fibres are found under the integument in the body, into which 

 they are continued from the well-developed muscles of the pe- 

 duncle. As in all the Endoprocta, the muscles which in the 

 Ectoprocta are engaged in the retraction of the polypide are en- 

 tirely absent. 



Kowalewsky believed that the digestive canal ofi. neapolitanum 

 had but a single orifice common to the functions of ingestion and 

 egestion — au error which Salensky rectifies by pointing out the 

 difficulty of observing the commencement of the oesophagus from 

 the point of view in which this part had been sought for by 

 Kowalewsky, namely from the ventral side of the body. 



Salensky has drawn attention to a remarkable gland-like appa- 

 ratus unnoticed by other observers. It has the form of two 

 bunches of cells plunged in the parenchyma of the body, one on 

 each side of the intestine. The cells in each bunch are eight in 

 number, of an ovoid figure, and consist of a transparent proto- 

 plasm apparently destitute of nucleus, and surrounded by a deli- 

 cate membrane. Each cell is carried on a tubular peduncle, which 

 is a continuation of its membrane ; and all the peduncles of each 

 bunch unite into a common canal, which opens on the side of the 

 body by a very minute orifice. Salensky regards these gland-like 

 organs as having an excretory function, probably renal ; and it is 

 impossible not to see in them bodies of great morphological sig- 

 nificance, which admit of a comparison with the segmental organs 

 of worms, and have an important bearing on the vexed question 

 of the Vermal relations of the Polyzoa. 



Salensky has further succeeded in demonstrating in Loxosoma 

 a central nervous system, in the form of a ganglion which is 

 placed above the stomach, between the end of the oesophagus and 

 the beginning of the intestine. It is of an oval shape, and gives 

 off nerves in different directions. Most of these lose themselves 

 in the parenchymatous tissue of the body. The largest direct 

 themselves from the two sides of the ganglion to the dorsal part 

 of the animal. Each of these, besides giving off many lateial 

 branches, presents in the middle of its course a small thickening 

 composed exclusively of nerve-cells, and, on approaching the in- 

 tegument, at first attenuates and then enlarges into a pyriform 

 knot, which becomes enclosed in one of a number of tubercles which 

 form elevations of the integument on the dorsal part of the body, 

 on each side of the longitudinal axis. These are doubtless sense- 



