52 



they may however be reduced to three primary ones, all 

 others being mere variations of them. Each form has a 

 very appropriate name applied to it by the fishermen, 

 which though far from elegant is very expressive. In its 

 youngest state it is merely an encrusting film of about a line 

 in thickness and is called Sea Scruff ; in the next stage is has 

 become a simple lobe or fingerlike prolongation, and is then 

 called paps or teats. In its most perfect state it has become 

 large and irregularly lobulated, and is then called dead man's 

 hands, or dead man's toes. The surface is very coriaceous, 

 filled with small calcareous spiculse, and marked with star- 

 shaped depressions similar to those of the Gorgonia. In a 

 longitudinal section of a full grown specimen, the cut surface 

 is found to be composed of a complicated kind of net work 

 with lozenge-shaped meshes. From the cells in which the 

 polypes rest, tubes are prolonged throughout the mass, and 

 freely communicate with each other. Though one tube does 

 not communicate with all the rest, yet there, is such an exten- 

 sive interchange of communication, that such may almost be 

 said to be the case. They open into each other chiefly by in- 

 osculation ; but the tubes are perforated in all parts by minute 

 openings which lead into small canals. These canals cross the 

 spaces between the large tubes and join similar canals from 

 other parts ; these are also perforated and send oflf capillary 

 ducts which traverse the meshes formed by the tubes in all 

 direction ; this capillary net work is pervaded by the jelly- 

 like flesh of the polype mass which encloses the spiculae des- 

 cribed by authors, If coloured water be given to the polype, 

 which will not irritate, it first passes into the stomach and 

 from thence, through the opening at its base, into the abdo- 

 minal cavity beneath, into the spaces formed by the septa 

 and from thence into the tentacula which then become dis- 

 tended. In passing downwards it goes through the base of 

 the cells into the tubes, through their openings into the canals 

 and from thence into the capillary ducts and surrounding 

 gelatine, by which the mass becomes swollen and enlarged as 

 it is commonly found. 



The tubes are formed of two, if not of three tunics, which 

 are subservient to different functions, but mutually assist 

 each other. The inner or liniDg membrane is thin, trans- 

 parent, and continuous with the lining membrane of the cell 

 and the outer transparent part of the polype. The second is 

 cartilaginous, with the fibres laying in a longitudinal direc- 

 tion; this being elastic allows of a certain degree of extension, 

 and when the distending force is lessened, enables the tube 

 to regain its former length. Beside these, and between them, 

 I have on several occasions found minute circular fibres 

 which are white, and I believe, muscular, and assist the Ion- 



