On Molecular and Microscopic Science, Volume 2 (of 2)Somerville, Mary
History
On Molecular and Microscopic Science, Volume 2 (of 2)
Somerville, Mary
Matter -- Constitution; Microscopy; Natural history
Thus each group has a special life and motion, controlled by a general
life and motion; strong individual muscular power controlled by general
muscular power; yet no nervous system has as yet been discovered, so
this animal activity must for the present be attributed to a strong,
inherent, contractile power in the muscular fibre. The Praya is seldom
complete, on account of the ease with which it casts off its great
bells.
None of the Diphyidæ have special organs for respiration; their juices
are aërated through their delicate tissues. They are diœcious, and
invariably produce perfect male and female medusiform zooids; they are
situated among the groups of the polypites and their appendages, and are
attached to the axis of the animal. When free, they swim away by the
contraction of their bells; the eggs are fertilized, and produce young
Diphyidæ, male and female; so these animals, like most of the oceanic
Hydrozoa, have two alternate stages of existence.
_Physograde Acalephæ._
The Galeolaria lutea (fig. 118, frontispiece) is similar to the Praya
diphys in having a slender, tubular body, with groups of sterile
polypites and their appendages hanging at intervals along its under-side
like a fringe, and also in having two swimming-bells at its anterior
extremity; but it has no special small bells. The large ones differ from
each other in size, form, and position. The largest is nearly
cylindrical, its mouth is turned upwards, and its rim is elevated at one
part into two stiff organs like the blinkers that are put over horses’
eyes: besides these, it has six salient points, which nearly close the
mouth of the bell at each contraction of the muscular iris that lines
the margin of the cavity. The small bell, which goes first in swimming,
is thicker and shorter, and its side rises in a hump, upon which the
closed end of the large bell rests, and in the cavity between the two
the anterior extremity of the filiform body is fixed. Each of the groups
of polypites, with their tentacles, lies immediately under its
spathe-shaped protecting plate. The polypites are very contractile, and
on their protuberant part, containing the digestive cavity, there is a
large circular space, which, as well as the whole tissue of the polypite
and the stinging capsules at the extremities of the tentacles, are of an
orange colour, and are akin in structure to those described.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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