CHAPTER XI.

NOVEMBER.

Characteristics of the Polyzoa--Details of Structure according to Allman--Plumatella repens--Its Great Beauty under proper Illumination--Its Tentacles and their Cilia--The Mouth and its Guard or Epistome--Intestinal Tube--How it swallowed a Rotifer, and what happened--Curiosities of Digestion--Are the Tentacles capable of Stinging?--Resting Eggs, or "Statoblasts"--Tube of Plumatella--Its Muscular Fibres--Physiological Importance of their Structure