Description of New Protozoa, 



31 



its anatomical structure is protozoan, it can be classed in no 

 described family of Protozoa. It consists of three parts : 1st, 

 An oblong cushion of opaque granular sarcode (fig. 8, a) 

 attached to the corallum of the zoophyte, and sometimes con- 

 taining a few vesicules. 2d, A long column attached to the 

 cushion (b), bearing a brush of short tentacles. This column 

 consists of two tissues ; an outer coat thrown into numerous 

 » transverse folds or wrinkles (fig. 9, a), and an inner core dis- 

 playing a faintly-marked longitudinal structure (&). At the 

 top of the column this inner coat appears to terminate in a 

 brush, or rather mop of from ten to more than forty tentacles 

 (c), which have occasionally a slow and rather irregular 

 waving motion, though they are generally at rest. 3c?, 

 There exists, but not invariably, a long, spindle-shaped, and 

 rather curved process of a granular tissue, similar to that of 

 the cushion (fig. 8, c), also attached by one extremity to the 

 upper surface of that body, and having at its unattached ex- 

 tremity a clear space, which opens externally by a small oral 

 aperture. This body is often absent, and I have seen it at- 

 tached alone to the Sertularia. I am therefore inclined to con- 

 sider it either a gemma or a parasite belonging to Gregarinae. 

 Although Corethria bears no resemblance in form to any known 

 Protozoan, it has anatomically all the elemental tissues of an 

 Actinophrys. Let us suppose an Actinophrys in which the 

 ectosarc or prehensile tissue is segregated from the endosarc 

 or nutritive tissue, the former, instead of forming a multitude 

 of palpocils, being gathered together into a single large 

 tentacle, surrounded in greater part by a wrinkled cuticle, and 

 undergoing division at its summit into a number of palpocils. 

 Such a structure I have observed in the compound palpocils 

 situated on the tentacles, at the extremities of the rays of 

 Solaster papposa, and such appears to be the structure of 

 the " mop" of Corethria. Food taken by the palpocils Avould 

 be transferred through the soft sarcode composing the centre 

 of the pillar, and digested by the granular endosarc of the 

 cushion below. I have seen the spores of Algae thus absorbed 

 into and pass through the tentacles of Ephelota apiculosa. 

 A like observation has been recorded with regard to the ten- 

 tacles of an Acineta. From no^dgov, a mop. 



