138 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
real bird’s beak. The head itself possesses considerable powers 
of movement., by means of a short neck. In one zoophyte tlie head 
itself was fixed, but the 
lower jaw free ; in another 
it was replaced by a tri- 
angular hood, with a 
beautifully - fitted trap- 
door, which evidently 
answered to the lower 
mandible. In the greater 
number of species each 
cell was provided with 
one head, but in others 
each cell had two. 
“ The young cells at 
the end of the branches 
of these corallines contain 
Fig. 59. Corpuscles from 
which originate the Polypier* 
Fig. 60. First form of the 
Polypier. (Lacaze-Puthicrs.) 
quite immature polypi, yet the vulture heads attached to them, 
though small, are in every respect perfect. When the polypus was 
removed by a needle from any of the cells, these organs did not 
appear to be in the least affected. When one of the vulture-like 
heads was cut off from a cell, the lower mandible retained its power ot 
opening and closing. Perhaps the most singular part of their structure 
is, that when there are more than two rows of cells on a branch, the 
central cells were furnished with these appendages of only one-fourth 
the size of the outside ones. Their movements varied according to 
the species ; hut in some I never saw the least motion, while others, 
with the lower mandible generally wide open, oscillated backwards and 
forwards at the rate of about five seconds each turn; others moved 
rapidly and by starts. When touched with a needle, the beak generally 
seized the point so firmly that the whole branch might be shaken.” 
In the Cresia, Darwin observed that each coll was furnished with a 
long-toothed bristle, which had the power of moving very quickly: 
each bristle and each vulture-like head moving quite independently ot 
each other ; sometimes all on one side, sometimes those on one branch 
only moving sim ultaneously, sometimes one after the other. In these 
actions we apparently behold as perfect a transmission of will in the 
zoophyte, though composed of thousands of distinct polypi, as in any 
