198 
ZOOPHYTA HELIANTHOIDA, 
ries considerably, some extending scarcely a line from their ex- 
ternal attachment, others reaching as far as the stomach, being 
nearly half an inch in breadth. The height generally corre- 
sponds with the height of the animal ; a few, however, of the 
narrowest leaflets extending upwards from the base, terminate 
obliquely in the sides, without being prolonged as high as to the 
lip or roof.”* These lamellae are of a muscular character, and 
by their actions cause the body to assume its various forms. The 
spaces between them are filled, ls£, with the ovaries attached, in 
elongated masses, to the inner border of most of the leaflets ; 
and with the 66 vermiform filaments” which, as already 
mentioned, are often extruded at the mouth. These filaments 
are capillary, greatly convoluted, smooth and of a white colour, 
with a sort of mesentery extended along one side. Their ap- 
pearance naturally suggests the idea of their being either the in- 
testines or the oviducts of the creature, but they perform no 
function of the kind ; and probably they are csecal, analogous 
to the filaments which hang from the stomach of the asteroid 
zoophytes. They have been often described as ovarian, even by 
late authors,! but Mr Teale has fully shewn the improbability, 
if not the erroneousness of this opinion. He believes the fila- 
ment to be tubular, though he acknowledges he has not been 
able to obtain any evidence of the fact, and 66 under the micro- 
scope it appears simply as a round, solid, translucent chord.” 
Such also has it always appeared to me, so that I can scarcely 
hesitate to pronounce Dicquemare’s description of its structure 
to be altogether incorrect. fC I have observed,” he says, fic that 
there grows or comes out of their body and mouth a sort of 
threads about the size of a horse- hair, which being examined with 
a solar microscope of five inches diameter, appear as if made up 
* Teale in Trans. Leeds’ Soc. i. 96. 
f “ Entre ce sac interieur (the stomach) et la peau exterieure, est une orga- 
nisation assez compliquee, mais encore obscure, consistant surtout en feuillets 
verticaux et fibreux, auxquels adherent les ovaires, semblables a des fils tres en- 
tortilles.” Cuvier, Reg. Anim. iii. p. 290. Delle Chiaje in Bull, des Sc. Nat. 
xvii. 471. See also J. R. Jones in Cyclop, of Anat. and Physiol, ii. 409 — 
Sharpey describes them as oviducts. Cyclop, cit. i. 614. Dicquemare had a 
singular notion that they contained certain bulbs or buds “ which open in time 
and cleaving to the bodies on which these threads are extended, produce small 
anemonies.” Phil. Trans, abridg. xiii. 639. 
