The Ocean World: Being a Description of the Sea and Its Living Inhabitants.Figuier, Louis
Science
The Ocean World: Being a Description of the Sea and Its Living Inhabitants.
Figuier, Louis
Marine animals; Ocean
These form a crown or bundle of vermiform appendages, of a reddish
colour, over an inch in length, and which are kept continually in
motion: these are formed of a glass-like cartilaginous substance; they
are conical tubes, closed on all parts except at the point where the
tentacle is attached to the disk. Their cavity is filled with the
granulous liquid already mentioned. On the under surface of the disk,
and to the inside of these tentacles, the polyps and fishing-lines are
attached.
[Illustration: Fig. 96. P. hydrostatica, with a portion of the disk,
three polyps, and reproductive clusters attached.]
The anterior part of the polyp is formed of a glass-like substance,
which changes its form in the most varied and surprising manner. It
bears a roundish mouth at its summit. In its posterior part the polyp
presents a straight hollow stem, of reddish colour; but near to this red
stem we find a thick tuft of cylindrical appendages, from the middle of
which springs the extensible and contractile filaments which Vogt calls
the _fishing-lines_ (fil pêcheur), and of which he has given the
following very strange account:
"Each of these appendages consists of an assemblage of cylindrical tubes
somewhat resembling and analogous to a filament of confervæ. All these
tubes are traversed by a continuous canal, which originates in the
internal cavity of the stem of the polyp. Each fragment of the line is
capable of a prodigious extent of elongation and contraction; but where
completely drawn back the pieces fold themselves up somewhat in the
manner of a pocket foot-rule. It is to the combined effect of
contraction and the unfolding of the pieces that these lines owe the
marvellous changes of length which they present." In Fig. 96 are
represented the polyps and fishing-lines of _P. hydrostatica_, with a
portion of the disk and two pairs of reproductive clusters.
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