9 79. 



Resting Eggs, or Statoblasts of a Plumatella. 



would flourish. My house was at the time in a state of siege, 

 assailed by bricklayers, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and 

 other enemies of scientific work, and from this cause my poly- 

 zoan visitors did not receive the attention they deserved. After 

 a week or two I returned to their examination, and found to 

 my vexation that the whole colony had departed this mortal 

 life. Their houses also were in a very dilapidated condition, 

 quite unfit for preservation, and I could only console myself by 

 noticing that the good polypides had made abundant provision 

 for the perpetuation of their race, by leaving behind them 

 thousands of statoblasts, or resting eggs. 



The generation of these creatures takes place in three modes. 

 First, by the eggs developed in an ovary, attached by a short 

 stem or peduncle to the endocyst, or internal and vital membrane 

 of the cells. The male organs, which fertilize the eggs, occur 

 in the same cells as the ovaries, and are connected with the 

 funiculus, literally, "little rope," the name given to the flexible 

 band by which the body of each polypide is moored to the 

 bottom of its cell. The second mode of increase is by the 

 growth of fresh cells, as off-shoots from the colony ; and the 

 third is by the production of statoblasts, which are probably 

 only caducous* buds, that is, buds destined to fall off at a certain 

 time, and wait for their development until appropriate circum- 

 stances arise. Professor Airman could not detect any mode by 

 which these statoblasts could be expelled during the life of the 

 particular polypide in whose cell they are formed, but after the 

 death of the animal, decomposition clears their way, and they 

 find no difficulty in falling out. As a rule, they are objects of 

 considerable beauty, more or less oval in form, and surrounded 

 by a marginal ring of a different colour, and in which the cell 

 structure makes a pretty pattern of the network kind. In 

 Cristatella mucedi, remarkable for the locomotive properties of 

 the entire colony, the statoblasts are round, and still further 

 decorated with projecting spines. In the specimens under our 

 notice, these objects were like those produced by undoubted 

 Plumatella rejpens, and I was curious to see whether any of them 

 would develop, and reproduce, or omit, the peculiarities of the 

 maternal form. For this purpose hundreds, or thousands of 

 them were placed in a glass jar full of water, and having a few 

 bits of anacharis for their vegetable companions. The summer 

 ended, the autumn came, the autumn passed, but no appearance 

 of activity was manifested by the little egg-buds, which either 

 floated on the surface of the water, or adhered to the sides of 

 the vessel. Occasionally I squeezed one between the glasses of 

 a live box, and from the appearance of the contents, conjectured 



* Caducous (caducus, ready to fall), see Her.slow's Dictionary of Botanical 

 Terms. 



