Page:EB1911 - Volume 11.djvu/531

STREPTONEURA] rasping tongue through the shells of other molluscs upon which it preys. A crop-like dilatation of the gut and a recurved intestine, embedded in the compact yellowish-brown liver, the ducts of which open into it, form the rest of the digestive tract and occupy a large bulk of the visceral hump. The buccal region presents a pair of shelly jaws placed laterally upon the lips, and a wide range of variation in the form of the denticles of the lingual ribbon or radula.

Well-developed glandular invaginations occur in different positions on the foot in Pectinibranchia. The most important of these opens by the ventral pedal pore, situated in the median line in the anterior half of the foot. This organ is probably homologous with the byssogenous gland of Lamellibranchs. The aperture, which was formerly supposed to be an aquiferous pore, leads into an extensive and often ramified cavity surrounded by glandular tubules. The gland has been found in both sub-orders of the Pectinibranchia, in Cyclostoma and Cypraea among the Taenioglossa, in Hemifusus, Cassis, Nassa, Murex, Fasciolariidae, Turbinellidae, Olividae, Marginellidae and Conidae among the Stenoglossa. It was discovered by J. T. Cunningham that in Buccinum the egg-capsules are formed by this pedal gland and not by any accessory organ of the generative system. Such horny egg-capsules doubtless have the same origin in all other species in which they occur, e.g. Fusus, Pyrula, Purpura, Murex, Nassa, Trophon, Voluta, &amp;c. The float of the pelagic Janthina, to which the egg-capsules are attached, probably is also formed by the secretion of the pedal gland.

Other glands opening on or near the foot are: (1) The suprapedal gland opening in the middle line between the snout and the anterior border of the foot. It is most commonly found in sessile forms and in terrestrial genera such as Cyclostoma; (2) the anterior pedal gland opening into the anterior groove of the foot, generally present in aquatic species; (3) dorsal posterior mucous glands in certain Cyclostomatidae.

The foot of the Pectinibranchia, unlike the simple muscular disk of the Isopleura and Aspidobranchia, is very often divided into lobes, a fore, middle and hind lobe (pro-, meso- and meta-podium, see figs. 24 and 25). Very usually, but not universally, the metapodium carries an operculum. The division of the foot into lobes is a simple case of that much greater elaboration or breaking up into processes and regions which it undergoes in the class Cephalopoda. Even among some Gastropoda (viz. the Opisthobranchia) we find the lobation of the foot still further carried out by the development of lateral lobes, the parapodia, whilst there are many Pectinibranchia, on the other hand, in which the foot has a simple oblong form without any trace of lobes.

The development of the Pectinibranchia has been followed in several examples, e.g. Paludina, Purpura, Nassa, Vermetus, Neritina. As in other Molluscan groups, we find a wide variation in the early process of the formation of the first embryonic cells, and their arrangement as a diblastula, dependent on the greater or less amount of food-yolk which is present in the egg-cell when it commences its embryonic changes. In fig. 26 the early stages of Paludina vivipara are represented. There is but very little food-material in the egg of this Pectinibranch, and consequently the diblastula forms by invagination; the blastopore or orifice of invagination coincides with the anus, and never closes entirely. A well-marked trochosphere is formed by the development of an equatorial ciliated band; and subsequently, by the disproportionate growth of the lower hemisphere, the trochosphere becomes a veliger. The primitive shell-sac or shell-gland is well marked at this stage, and the pharynx is seen as a new ingrowth (the stomodaeum), about to fuse with and open into the primitively invaginated arch-enteron (fig. 26, F).

In other Pectinibranchia (and such variations are representative for all Mollusca, and not characteristic only of Pectinibranchia) we find that there is a very unequal division of the egg-cell at the commencement of embryonic development, as in Nassa. Consequently there is, strictly speaking, no invagination (emboly), but an overgrowth (epiboly) of the smaller cells to enclose the larger. The general features of this process and of the relation of the blastopore to mouth and anus have been explained in treating of the development of Mollusca generally. In such cases the blastopore may entirely close, and both mouth and anus develop as new ingrowths (stomodaeum and proctodaeum), whilst, according to the observations of N. Bobretzky, the closed blastopore may coincide in position with the mouth in some instances (Nassa, &c.), instead of with the anus. But in these epibolic forms, just as in the embolic Paludina, the embryo proceeds to develop its ciliated band and shell-gland, passing through the earlier condition of a trochosphere to that of the veliger. In the veliger stage many Pectinibranchia (Purpura, Nassa, &c.) exhibit, in the dorsal region behind the head, a contractile area of the body-wall. This acts as a larval heart, but ceases to pulsate after a time. Similar rhythmically contractile areas are found on the foot of the embryo Pulmonate Limax and on the yolk-sac (distended foot-surface) of the Cephalopod Loligo. The preconchylian invagination or shell-gland is formed in the embryo behind the velum, on the surface opposite the blastopore. It is surrounded by a ridge of cells which gradually extends over the visceral sac and secretes the shell. In forms which are naked in the adult state, the shell falls off soon after the reduction of the velum, but in Cenia, Runcina and Vaginula the shell-gland and shell are not developed, and the young animal when hatched has already the naked form of the adult.