DEVELOPMENT AND LIFE-HISTORY.—The development takes place within the body of the parent, in a part of the peribranchial cavity. It is a "direct" development, the tailed larval stage being omitted. The segmentation is incomplete or "meroblastic," and an elongated embryo is formed on the surface of a mass of food-yolk. Follicle-cells, or kalymmocytes, migrate into the embryo, where they aid in its nutrition. The embryo (or young oozooid),[104] after the formation of an alimentary cavity, a tubular nervous system, and a pair of laterally placed atrial tubes, divides into an anterior and a posterior part (see Fig. 58). The anterior and ventral part, or stolon, then segments into four pieces (the tetrazooids or first blastozooids),[104] which afterwards develop into the first ascidiozooids of the colony, while the posterior part remains in a rudimentary condition, and is what was called by Huxley the "cyathozooid" (Fig. 58, _cy_). This is really the degenerate oozooid, and eventually atrophies without having {94}completed its development, but having precociously given rise to the budding stolon. As the four ascidiozooids increase in size, they grow round the cyathozooid and soon encircle it (Fig. 58, B). In this condition the young colony leaves the body of the parent and becomes free. The cyathozooid absorbs the nourishing yolk upon which it lies, and distributes it to the ascidiozooids by means of a heart and system of vessels which have been meanwhile formed. When the cyathozooid atrophies and is absorbed, its original atrial aperture remains and deepens to become the central cavity[105] of the young colony, which now consists of four ascidiozooids placed in a ring, around where the cyathozooid was, and enveloped in a common test. The test is at first formed by the ectoderm cells of the cyathozooid. Later it becomes invaded by mesoblast cells from the ascidiozooids in the usual manner. The colony gradually increases by the formation of buds from these four original ascidiozooids. The young colony is, in some species, at first male, and only becomes hermaphrodite when it has attained to some size. [Illustration: FIG. 58.—Development of _Pyrosoma_ colony. A, young stage showing oozooid or cyathozooid, _cy_, with stolon divided into four blastozooids (I.-IV.): _v_, vitellus. B, older stage showing the four blastozooids in a ring around the remains of the cyathozooid. (After Salensky.)]