The animal life of our seashore With special reference to the New Jersey coast and the southern shore of Long Island . ute aninteresting group of animals whose members liveboth upon the rocks and buried in the sand or so different in gen-eral appearance, they repre-sent only extreme modifica-tions of the structure seen inthe star-fish or the for example that singu-larly attractive creature theSynapta, whose elongatedleech-like body can be se-cured from the mud-flats bythe aid of a garden-trowel, andexamine it. The transparentcylindrical form, permittingthe yellow i
The animal life of our seashore With special reference to the New Jersey coast and the southern shore of Long Island . ute aninteresting group of animals whose members liveboth upon the rocks and buried in the sand or so different in gen-eral appearance, they repre-sent only extreme modifica-tions of the structure seen inthe star-fish or the for example that singu-larly attractive creature theSynapta, whose elongatedleech-like body can be se-cured from the mud-flats bythe aid of a garden-trowel, andexamine it. The transparentcylindrical form, permittingthe yellow intestinal canal tobe clearly visible in the in-terior, shows at first little toconnect it with either star-fish or sea-urchin, butsoon you will perceive ^ve well-defined bandstraversing the length of the body from one ex-tremity to the other. These are indeed the am-bulacra, although in this instance the tubes areclosed and, so far as locomotion is concerned, func-tionless. In its fundamental structure, therefore,the sea-cucumber is only a greatly elongated sea-urchin, being pushed out axially, as it were, to its. Synapta. STAR^FISHES, SEA-URCHINS, ETC. 79 farthest limit. But it difters in many details ofstructure. The mouth in the Synapta is surroundedby a wreath of branched tentacles, into whose in-terior the sea-water is admitted through a systemof vessels connecting with a madreporic latter structure, as in all other sea-cucumbers,is placed near the Closely examined, the transparent wall of thebody will be found to be speckled with minutewart-like processes, giving the animal a rough feelwhen taken in the hand. These processes under amicroscope reveal most extraordinary forms, whichare most nearly likened in outline to an anchor:hence we speak of the anchor-like spicules em-bedded in the body-substance, which of themselvesfrequently offer good characters in the determina-tion of species. In some forms, as in the remark-able pangolin-like Psolus of the N
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectmarineanimals, bookye
