animals

Sunday, March 18, 2007

(The following are the properties of the egg and of the convolutes
in the carid.)

The male, by the way, differs from the female in regard to its
flesh, in having in connexion with the chest two separate and distinct
white substances, resembling in colour and conformation the
tentacles of the cuttle-fish, and they are convoluted like the 'poppy'
or quasi-liver of the trumpet-shell. These organs have their
starting-point in 'cotyledons' or papillae, which are situated under
the hindmost feet; and hereabouts the flesh is red and blood-coloured,
but is slippery to the touch and in so far unlike flesh. Off from
the convolute organ at the chest branches off another coil about as
thick as ordinary twine; and underneath there are two granular seminal
bodies in juxta-position with the gut. These are the organs of the
male. The female has red-coloured eggs, which are adjacent to the
stomach and to each side of the gut all along to the fleshy parts,
being enveloped in a thin membrane.

Such are the parts, internal and external, of the carid.