THE CEOWN ANIMALCULE. 
47 
transverse band immediately after the commencement of the 
divarication, the individual muscle-bands join the annular band 
at remote points. Such seems the usual order, but it is not 
invariable; for in some specimens I have seen muscle-bands 
which seem to run down direct from the intervals of the arms, 
without uniting to form pairs. The longitudinal muscles pass 
through the foot, having, as I suspect, an insertion into the 
walls of the body near the origin of this member, by whose 
aid the foot can be thrown into strongly-marked transverse 
corrugations. 
Besides the annular band mentioned, there is another which 
passes round the neck, unconnected with the longitudinal series, 
at the level of the first collar ; and there are threads which are 
contractile, and therefore, I presume, muscular, which pass from 
side to side of the walls and processes of the mouth-funnel. I 
have not been able to trace any of the special muscles of the 
trunk, though doubtless such exist. 
Diseases. — I have already alluded to the tendency of the 
Stephanoceros to disease. One curious malady it seems rather 
subject to. The foot attenuates, and soon appears to be dis- 
solving in some parts. When the dissolution has extended 
through its thickness, the animal draws up the proximal portion 
that remains, and thus, having now no connexion with the 
gelatinous case, becomes free. The arms now become feeble, 
and can no longer maintain then* beautiful mitre-like form, but 
expand widely ; parts of the viscera also appear dissolving, and 
sometimes there is a protrusion of the intestines. Yet strong 
contractions of the body and vigorous working of the jaws 
still go on, twelve, eighteen, or even more hours after these 
symptoms have manifested themselves. At length the arms 
decay at the base, and become separate, when one part of each 
swells out into a large bladder, doubtless by the expansion of 
the gases formed in decomposition, and reveals an item of 
structure which is not discernible in health. Through the centre 
of the swollen part runs longitudinally a cord, which, from its 
granular appearance, and its resemblance to the bands that 
pass round the head, I judge to be nervous matter. The arms 
seem peculiarly liable to disorder. Often, towards the extremity 
of one, minute bubbles appear in the substance ; these increase 
in number, and take the appearance of a congeries of minute 
black specks ; soon that part of the arm sloughs off, and thus 
it is common to see a Stephanoceros with one or more arms 
reduced to stumps. 
The arms are capable of being constricted, bent nearly at an 
angle, or drawn up, with close-set wrinkles, into a very short 
space. This last process sometimes occurs with one arm alone; 
