212 
FALKLAND LSLANDS 
CHAP. 
a triangular hood, with a beautifully-fitted trap-door, which evi¬ 
dently 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 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 in the least affected. When one of the 
vulture-like heads was cut off from a cell, the lower mandible 
retained its power of opening and closing. Perhaps the most 
singular part of their structure is, that when there were more 
than two rows of cells on a branch, the central cells were fur¬ 
nished with these appendages, of only one-fourth the size of the 
outside ones. Their movements varied according to the species ; 
but 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. 
These bodies have no relation whatever with the production 
of the eggs or gemmules, as they are formed before the young 
polypi appear in the cells at the end of the growing branches ; 
as they move independently of the polypi, and do not appear to 
be in any way connected with them ; and as they differ in size 
on the outer and inner rows of cells, I have little doubt that in 
their functions they are related rather to the horny axis of the 
branches than to the polypi in the cells. The fleshy append¬ 
age at the lower extremity of the sea-pen (described at Bahia 
Blanca) also forms part of the zoophyte, as a whole, in the same 
manner as the roots of a tree form part of the whole tree, and 
not of the individual leaf or flower-buds. 
In another elegant little coralline (Crisia ?) each cell was 
furnished with a long-toothed bristle, which had the power of 
moving quickly. Each of these bristles and each of the vulture¬ 
like heads generally moved quite independently of the others, but 
sometimes all on both sides of a branch, sometimes only those 
on one side, moved together coinstantaneously ; sometimes each 
moved in regular order one after another. In these actions we 
