supporting lamella

HISTOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT OP MYRIOTHELA PHRYGTA. 525
presence of sense-cells and cilia in its upper part, and of
numerous glandular cells, the goblet-cells, in its lower part.
(2) A middle zone comprising the middle region of the entire
animal, and characterised by the presence of numerous glandcells.
(3) The blastostyles and the foot region, where the
endoderm is almost exclusively composed of vacuolate cells,
usually loaded to the full with stored nutritive material in the
form of nutritive spheres.
Of the function of the goblet-cells I can say little. From
their position I had supposed that their stored material was
discharged when the food was first received, and that they were
concerned in the elaboration of a digestive ferment or ferments.
But I have found them apparently unaltered in animals which
have just taken in their prey (a crustacean). The glairy,
sticky appearance of the contents of the expanded portion of
the goblet, however, suggests the idea that they form a strongly
adhesive surface to what may be called the prehensile portion
of the endoderm. The gland-cells, on the other hand, present
no especial difficulties. Fig. 18 a represents one shrunken and
discharged as seen in an animal at the close of a digestive act,
that is with merely the detritus of a meal in its enteric cavity.
Fig. 18 shows one taken from a fasting animal. It is fully
loaded with granules. Fig. 18$ represents an intermediate condition.
The granules are large and coarse, and appear to be
formed in the deeper portions of the cell. Their discharge is
characteristic, and may be witnessed in preparations from an
animal which has just ingested its prey. The granules are
extruded, apparently unchanged, into the somatic fluid, there
to be dissolved. That is to say, they do not break down to
form the digestive enzymes until they are free from the cell in
which they were formed (fig. 21).
The Process of Digestion.—For a long time I was
unable to determine the natural food of Myriothela, while at
the same time all endeavours to induce it to ingest pieces of
raw meat or fragments of Molluscs and Crustacea completely
failed. I therefore, in the meantime, turned my attention to
carmine and sodium sulphindigotate, and with a fine pipette,