Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And WorkMitchell, P. Chalmers (Peter Chalmers), Sir
Science
Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work
Mitchell, P. Chalmers (Peter Chalmers), Sir
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895
Dealing with these creatures in the broad anatomical spirit with which
he had studied the Medusæ, Huxley shewed the typical structure
manifested in the different forms, and that was common to them and the
Ascidians or sea-squirts of the seashore. In a second paper on
"Appendicularia and Doliolum" he made further contributions to our
knowledge of these interesting creatures. Appendicularia is a curious
little Ascidian, differing from all the others in its possession of a
tail. Earlier observers had obtained it on various parts of the ocean
surface, but had failed entirely to detect its relationship to the
ordinary Ascidians. Chamisso got it near Behring's Straits and thought
that it was more nearly allied to "Venus's Girdle," a Cœlenterate.
Mertens, another distinguished zoölogist, had declared that "the
relation of this animal with the Pteropods (a peculiar group of
molluscs) is unmistakable"; while Müller, a prince among German
anatomists, confessed that "he did not know in what division of the
animal kingdom to place this creature." Huxley shewed that it
possessed all the characteristic features of the Ascidians, the same
arrangement of organs, the same kind of nervous system, a respiratory
chamber formed from the fore part of the alimentary canal, and a
peculiar organ running along the pharynx which Huxley called the
endostyle and which is one of the most striking peculiarities of the
whole group. The real nature of the tail was Huxley's most striking
discovery. He pointed out that ordinary Ascidians begin life as tiny
tadpole-like creatures which swim freely by the aid of a long caudal
appendage; and that while these better-known Ascidians lose their
tails when they settle down into adult life, the Appendiculariæ are
Ascidians which retain this larval structure throughout life. Von Baer
had shown that in the great natural groups of higher animals some
forms occur which typify, in their adult condition, the larval state
of the higher forms of the group. Thus, among the amphibia, frogs have
tails in the larval or tadpole condition; but newts throughout life
remain in the larval or tailed condition. Appendicularia he considered
to be the lowest form of the Ascidians, and to typify in its adult
condition the larval stages of the higher Ascidians.
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