The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-10-26
THE SEA- SQUIRT.

A Living Example of Degeneracy
 The sea squirt has such curious organization and passes through so strange a series of changes in it's de- velopment that it and it's allies have long been regarded with more than usu- al interest by naturali sts For the sea-
 squirt is a living example of fea enara cy, of structural degradation so con-
 plete that until recently it was univer- sally supposed to De a moluslk. Its shape is roughly cylindrical; it's cclor a dingy gray; and it lives attached by it's base to a rock on the seashora. At itS free end there is hole, commonly sur- rounded by eight small lobes, and lit- tie less than halfway down the side of the body is another opening, with SIX encircling lobes. The upper aperture is the mouth, and it leads to the digestive tube, which consists of spacious phar- ynx immediately following the mouth, a gullet, stomach and an intestine. Completely surrounding the digestive tube, except along one line, where the pharynx is fused with the bodywall, is a chamber called the atrium. The atrium opens to the exterior at the low CT of the two external apertures, which is hence called the atrial opening. If the Ascidian be carefully watched un- der natural conditions a current of water will be seen to continually enter the mouth and leave by the atrial open ing. If it be touched the creature will suddenly send out stream of water from each opening, and it's common name is derived from this habit of squirting when irritated'
 The inflowing current of water is doubly useful to the Ascidian. It not only washes into the digestive canal the microscopic organisms which consti- tute its food, but it also carries in solu- tion store of fresh oxygen, which is just as necessary for the healthy life of the animal as it is for our own well-be- ing. We have also all the essentials of a breathing process. The blood is con- stantly renewed by the beating of a little heart placed on one side of the stomach. The heart works in a some- what peculiar fashion. The contrac- tions are for some time in one direc- tion and then the motion is suddenly reversed, the blood being propelled in the opposite direction. In this manner does the adult creature life, if such an uneventful existence can be called liv- ing. It spends it's days sedately rooted to the spot where, on abandoning the wayward habits of youth, it first set tied down. and it's obvious movements are limited to occasional contractinns of the outer coat or "tunic''
 If the animal has any intelligence at all it is of the most rudimentary char acter. and it is even problematical whether it possesses any special sense organs. There is mass of nervous matter just at the beginning of the pharynx. and this and some neighbor- ing structures may be of use for test ing the quality of the water flowing in at the mouth, but organs of sight and hearing are quite absent. The life of an oyster is in comparison one of pleas ing variety. It is one of the greatest triumphs of the still young science of embryology to have shown conclusively that this creature-little more than an automaton, and possessing no obvious trace of vertebrate structure-is yet a member of the great sub-kngdom to which all birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fishes belong, and of which we are pleased to consider our selves the erowning pinnacle and glory.
 As Kowalewsky watched the tiny egg develop he saw the single cell divide up until hollow two-layered ball of cells