On this old worm-eaten oyster-shell, which has been dredged up from the bottom of the sea, you observe several rounded lumps. They are of a cream-white hue, of somewhat solid texture, tough and hard to the touch, and studded all over with shallow depressions or pittings. The largest of these is not more than an inch and a-half in height, by two-thirds of an inch in thickness ; but specimens often occur of twice or thrice these dimensions,

Since my first discovery of this strange form in 1855, and my memoir on it in the " Trans, of the Linnean Society," it has remained unrecognised (and, indeed, somewhat suspected) for seventeen years. In the summer of 1872, however, it again occurred to the observation of the Rev. T. Hincks, who published a paper, with illustrations, on it, in the Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist, for Nov., 1872.

and much more divided than this ; sometimes forming a rude resemblance to a hand of stumpy, round fingers of sodden flesh; whence the fishermen call the object " Dead men's fingers," or sometimes, by a comparison equally apt, " Cow's paps." To zoologists it is known as Alcyonium digitatum.

Certainly there is nothing very attractive in these white lumps as they now appear; but then they are now in undress ; they do not expect to see company out of water. Their drawing-room is beneath the waves, in some submerged cave of ocean, where the sun's ray never penetrated, and where the only light is that dim green haze reflected from the sand and shingle of the sea-floor ; save when, on gala occasions, perchance, the Laomedece that fringe the walls light up their myriads of fairy lamps, and the tiny Medu&ce crowd into the watery festivities with their elfish circlets and spangles of living flame. It is then that the Cow's paps " take their hair out of paper," and display their loveliness to advantage.

Unfortunately, we have no card of invitation to these submarine routs, but perhaps we may induce one of the more juvenile of these beauties to indulge us, as a special favour, with a sample of the effect ; particularly if we can improvise a ball-room suited to the occasion. Let us try.

Selecting the very smallest specimen—a tiny thing no larger than a pea— I try to detach it without injury, by inserting the tip of my pocket-knife under the frilled lamina of oyster-shell on which it rests, and working off the fragment. I have succeeded : here it is, its attachment unbroken : it is still firmly adherent to the severed slice of shell, which is so small that I can drop it with its burden into this narrow trough of glass. The whole concern, trough, shell, and polype, is now to be dropped into this capacious jar of freshly dipped sea-water, and put away for an hour into a dark closet.

Now let us see the result. Yes, it is as I expected. The united stimulus of the darkness and the sea-water has acted on the Cow's pap, just as would the rising and covering tide in its native cavern, after it had been left exposed for some hours by the recess of the sea. It is fully expanded, and is now as lovely as just now it was unpleasing.

In the first place it is swollen to twice its former dimensions, and has acquired at the same time a semi-pellucidity, and a more delicate hue. But in the place of the pits on the surface (there were not more than half-a-dozen in this little specimen, which makes it more suitable for examination), it is covered with tall polypes, standing out on all sides, of crystalline clearness and starry forms, each eminently beautiful in itself, and surrounding the whole mass with a sort of atmosphere of almost invisible and impalpable lustre peculiarly charming.

Coy as these deep-water strangers are of displaying their beauties in our glaring aquariums, they will bear with equanimity a good deal of shaking, when once they are expanded. Hence I may be able to transfer the trough with its contents from the jar to the stage of the microscope, and thus enable you to gaze on its details for a little while, before the dull sensorium of the creature is sufficiently warned of its ungenial position to cause it to shut itself up and resume its ugliness.

As the protruded polypes are exactly alike, it will be enough to confine our attention to one. It is an elevated tubular column of translucent substance, terminating in an expanded flower of eight slender pointed petals, which spring outward with a graceful swell, so as to give the form of a shallow bell to their general outline. The base springs, like the foot of a tree, from the margin of a cell, which penetrates the substance of the mass, into which we can see far down, and into which the whole of the now extended and expanded blossom was withdrawn when we first saw it, leaving only the shallow depression to mark its situation.

The form of the column is in general that of the trunk of a tree, or that of a long cone ; but there is a sudden constriction just above the base, and another below the point, where what may be called the flower expands. It is the petals of this latter which constitute the principal charm of this creature. They are, properly speaking, the tentacles of the polype, answering in function and position to those on the Laomedea, but differing considerably from them in form. Each of the eight is thick and broad at its

POLYPES OF COW S PAP.

origin, and quickly tapers to a point : on each of two opposite sides, viz., those which look towards the two adjoining tentacles, runs a row of delicately slender filaments, which at the middle part of the tentacle are moderately long, but diminish regularly as they approach either end. Starting from the side of the tentacle, in the plane of its transverse diameter, these elegant pinna? presently arch downwards, but with perfect uniformity and

symmetry. By means of the high magnifying power which I have now applied, each of these pinnre is seen to he roughened with whorls of knobs, which are accumulations of cnidse, analogous to those which we lately demonstrated in the tentacle of Laomedea.

In the midst of the area surrounded by the petal-like tentacles, a narrow slit opens into the stomach. This organ is a flat sac, resembling an empty pillow-case hanging down in the centre of the column, and open at the lower end. From this end, which does not extend to more than one-sixth of the depth of the cavity, three threads, much twisted and irregularly thickened, spring off at each side, and arch downwards, for a short distance. These are the reproductive organs, which fringe the free edges of as many delicate membranes which run up as perpendicular partitions between the stomach and outer wall, uniting with both, and thus dividing the space surrounding the stomach into chambers open at the bottom. There are eight of these septa (as the partitions are called), but one on each side is destitute of the fringing twisted thread.

The whole surface of the interior—the walls, the stomach, and the septa—is clothed with fine vibratile cilia, by the action of which constant currents are maintained in the water, which bathes every part of the cavity, freely entering at the mouth. We can distinctly trace these ciliary currents hurling along with irregular energy the products of digestion, in the form of translucent granules, especially along the edges of the septa.

Though the substance of the polype is soft and flexible, it contains solid elements. Just below the expansion of the tentacular blossom, we see imbedded in the skin a vast mass of calcareous needle-like bodies called spicula. Individually, these are very minute, and their form is swollen in the middle, and taper at each extremity, the whole roughened with projecting knots. Collectively, they are grouped in regular forms, crowded into dense masses at the foot of each tentacle ; the mass having a threepointed outline, of which the central and largest point runs up into the tentacle.

Towards the lower region of the column, spicula again occur, scattered throughout the skin, and crowded into groups, one on each interseptal space. These spicula are of a very different shape from the upper ones; for they form short thick cylinders, with each end dilated into a star of five or six short branches, which are again starred at their truncate ends.

If we now sacrifice our little Cow's pap to our scientific

SPICULA OF COWS PAP.

curiosity, we shall see something of its internal structure. When removed from the water, the flower-like polypes soon retract. I now cut open the mass lengthwise with a keen knife ; and you see that it is permeated by canals running from the base towards every part of the circumference, dilating here and there to form the cells which protrude and retract the polypes. This is a complete system of water-supply : the surrounding sea-water, entering at the mouths of the several polypes, bathes the whole interior, and conveys oxygen and the products of digestion together to every part of the compound organism. *> A

The fleshy substance which surrounds these canals is of a loose, spongy character, and grates beneath the knife : a circumstance which is owing to the predominance of the calcareous element here, as you will see when I extract a small portion of it, and, laying it on a slip of glass, treat it with caustic potass. The microscope now reveals a large number of spicula, far larger than those we have hitherto observed, and different from either sort in form. These resemble very gnarled branches of oak, with the branchlets broken off close to their origin, leaving ra<™ed and starred ends.

Chapter XIX. Sea-Anemones: their Weapons

A very vast amount of the energy of animal life is spent either in making war, or in resisting or evading it. Offence and defence are sciences which the inferior creatures can in nowise neglect, since all are interested in one or other, and many in both ; and various are the arts and devices, the tricks and stratagems, the instincts and faculties, employed in that earnest strife which never knows a suspension of hostilities. All classes of animals, invertebrate as well as vertebrate, are warriors by profession : the Spider is as carnivorous as the Lion, and more strategic ; and the invisible Brachion is as ruthless and insatiable as either.

An enumeration and description of the different kinds of weapons, by means of which this truceless warfare is carried on, would make a volume : nor would the subject be then exhausted; for, since it enters so largely into the very existence of animal life, the discoveries of advancing science are ever bringing to light new forms and modifications, strange and unexpected contrivances, all calculated to enhance our view of the inexhaustible resources of the Lord God Omnipotent, " Who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working."

I am going to bring under your notice this evening some highly curious examples of animal weapons, of which the very existence was until lately altogether unsuspected : yet so profusely distributed that they are eminently characteristic of the animals we have been 2 a 2 recently considering—viz., the Medusae and the Zoophytes. They have repeatedly fallen under our observation in examining the specimens of these creatures which we had selected, but I had reserved the fuller elucidation of them for an occasion in which they should come before us under circumstances of such unusual development as greatly to facilitate our researches. The weapons I speak of are the cnidce or nettling-cells.

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