88 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
long filiform tentacular appendage, a mouth, an oesophagus, one 
or many stomachs, and branching ovaries — thus exhibiting a certain 
complexity of organization. De Blainville took the same view, and 
placed it among the Diphydos. Van Beneden and Doyere, on the 
other hand, deny its relation to the Acalephm, conceiving its organ- 
ization to be much more simple : they place it with the Rlmopoda ■ 
Quatrefages adopts the same view, denying the existence of a true 
month or intestinal canal : he considers the so-called stomachs as 
simple “vacuales,” similar to those observed in the Bhizopoda and 
Infusoria. Mr. Huxley, describing it in the “ Journal of Microscopical 
Science ” (vol. iii.), says it has nearly the form of a peach, a filiform 
tentacle, equal in length to the diameter of the body, occupying 
the place where the stalk of the peach might be, which depends 
Fig. 25 . Noctlluca miliaris. 
from it, mid exhibits slow w&vy motions when the cre&tnre is in full 
activity. “ I have even seen a noctiluca he adds, “ appear to push 
against obstacles with this tentacle.” 
“The body,” he continues, “is composed of a structureless and 
somewhat dense external membrane, which is continued on to the 
tentacle. Beneath this is a layer of granules, or rather of gelatinous 
membrane, through whose substance minute granules are scattered 
without any very definite arrangement ; from hence arises a net-work 
of very delicate fibrils, whose meshes are not more than one three- 
hundredth part of an inch in diameter, which gradually pass internally 
— the reticulation becoming more and more open — into coarser fibres, 
taking a convergent direction towards the stomach and nucleus- 
All these fibres and fibrils are covered with minute granules, which ar e 
usually larger towards the centre.” 
Mr. Huxley is inclined to think, from all he has observed, that the 
