Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/148

Rh 132 A C T -A C T but his observation La.? not been verified by subsequent investigations. According to Milne Edwards, followed by others (among whom I must include myself), the nervous system consists of a ganglion, situated at the aboral pole of the body, whence nerves radiate, the most conspicuous of which are eight cords which run down the correspond ing series of paddles; and a sensory organ, having the characters of an otolithic sac, is seated upon the ganglion. Agassiz and Kolliker, on the other hand, have denied that the appearances described (though they really exist) are justly interpreted. And again, though the body, described as an otolithic sac, undoubtedly exists in the position indi cated in all, or most, of the Ctenophora, the question has been raised whether it is an auditory or a visual organ. These problems have been recently reinvestigated with great care, and by the aid of the refined methods of modern histology, by Dr Einier, 1 who describes a ner vous system, consisting of extremely delicate varicose ulti mate nerve fibrils, which traverse the mesoderm in all directions, and are connected here and there with gan- glionic corpuscles. These nerves are only discernible with high magnifying powers, as they are for the most part isolated, and are collected into bundles only beneath the longitudinal canals. The mass which lies beneath the lithocyst is composed of cells, but these have none of the special characters of nerve cells. Eimer states that he has traced the filaments, which he considers to be nerves, into direct continuity with muscular fibres; and, around the mouth, into subepidermal bodies, which he regards as rudimentary forms of tactile corpuscles. The lithocyst is recognised as an auditory organ, and, in addition, eye-spots are described. With a fundamental similarity of organisation, the form of the body varies extraordinarily in the Ctenophora. One of the genera which is commonest on our coasts Cydippe (Pleeobrachia) is spheroidal; others (Beroe} are more ovate; others are provided with large lobular processes (Eiicharis), while an extreme modification, in which the body is ribbon shaped, is seen in Cesium. The Ctenophora are divisible into two very unequal groups : s I. Eurystomata, in which the large oral aperture occupies the trun cated extremity of the oval body. 1. Bcroicke. II. Stetwstomata, in which the oral aperture and the gastric sac are small relatively to the size of the body. 2. Saccatce. 3. Lobatcc. 4. Tceniatoe. 1. Beroidce. The body is ovate, truncated at the oral pole, the aboral being more or less acuminate and mobile. The digestive cavity occupies a large portion of the body. The oral margin is simple in Beroe and Idijia ; but in Rangia the interradial spaces are notched, and in each a short process projects. The radial canals are connected by a circumoral canal. No tentacles are present. The ctenophores of Pandora do not extend over more than half the body, as in the embryos of Cydippe. The development of the Beroidce is unac companied by metamorphosis. 2. Saccatos. The circumoral canal is absent. The oral aperture is laterally compressed, its long axis being at right angles to the plane of the tentacles, which are present in all the genera, and which are either simple (Cydippe), or furnished with lamellar and filamentous appendages (Hormiphora). The ctenophores are equal in length, or the lateral ones are fully developed, while the intermediate are shorter. 3. Lobatcc. The oral and aboral pole, or the oral only, bear lobate appendages. BolinA hiis a pair of oral lappets, into which the radial canals are pro longed. The ctenophores corresponding to these lobes are the longest, while the middle ones are much shorter, and are prolonged on to an auricle or finger-like lobe. The tentacles are represented by a tuft of short processes on either side of the mouth. The young BoUnd has the form of Cydippe, and like it bears a pair of long-fringed e Sludien auf Capri. 1873. a Haeckel, &quot; Geiierelle Morphologic&quot; ii. Ixi. tentacles. The aboral region, bearing the lateral ctenophores, grows more rapidly than the oral, so as ultimately to project in two principal lobes, by which the similar outgrowth of the median aboral regions with its ctenophores is arrested, the auricles being the dwarfed representatives of these regions. These auricles in Eucharis are longer, so that the ctenophores are all of equal length. The tentacles of this genus are placed at the oral pole ; the oral lobes are equivalent to the median ctenophores of Cydippe. Eurhamphccu has the oral lobes small, the body elongated, terminated by two conical projections, on which the median etenophores are prolonged. 4. Tccniatce. The body of Cesium is laterally compressed and elongated in a direction which corresponds to one of the transverse diameters of Cydippe, the ribbon-like band thus formed being sometimes three or even four feet long. The tentacles are near the oral pole ; the canals are ten in number; the medio-lateral canals terminate in trunks which follow the oral margin of the ribbon, and thus correspond to the circular canal of Bcroc. Many Actinozoa (PennatuHdce, Ctenophora} are phos phorescent; but the conditions which determine the evolu tion of light have not been determined. All Actinozoa are marine animals, and the distribution of many of the families (Actinidce, Turbinolidce, Pennatu Hdce, Beroidce) is extremely wide, and bears no ascertain- able relation to climate. (T. n. H.) ACTION, in Law, is the process by which redress is sought in a court of justice for the violation of a legal right. The word is used by jurists in three different senses. Sometimes it is spoken of as a right the right, namely, of instituting the legal process; sometimes, and more pro perly, it means the legal process itself ; and sometimes the particular form which it assumes. The most universally recognised division of actions is the division established by the Roman lawyers into actions in rem and in jyersonam. An action in rem asserts a right to a particular thing as against all the world; an action in j)crsonam asserts a right only as against a particular person. For the sake of con venience, the law relating to actions ought to form a separate section by itself in a properly constructed code. In Roman law the action passed through three historical stages In the first period, which was brought to an end by the Lex ^butia, about 573 A.u.c., the system of legis actioncs prevailed. These were five in number, the actio sacramenti, per judicis postula- tionem, per condictionem, per manus injectionem, per pignoris cap- tioncin. The first was the primitive and characteristic action of the Roman law, and the others were little more than modes of applying it to cases not contemplated in the original form, or of carrying the result of it into execution when the action had been decided. ACTION, in English Law, means the form of civil pro cess hitherto observed in the Courts of Common Law. The procedure in the Court of Chancery is totally distinct, but some account of the former may be desirable in order to explain the new form of action introduced for all the civil courts by the Judicature Act of 1873: Actions at law are divided by Blackstone into three classes, according to the relief which they are respectively intended to obtain. Real actions are those &quot;whereby the plaintiff claims title to have any lands or tenements, rents, commons, or other heredita ments.&quot; Inpersonal actions the claim is &quot; for debt or personal duty, or damages in lieu thereof,&quot; or for &quot;satisfaction in damages for some injury done to person or property.&quot; Mixed actions were sup posed to partake of the nature of both of these ; that is to say, there was a demand both for real property and for personal damages, as in the case of an action for waste. The distinction has long ceased to be of any value. Blackstone speaks of real actions as being in his time pretty generally laid aside, and successive enactments have oblite rated the distinctions altogether. The statute 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 27, abolished all the real and mixed actions, except three real actions, and ejectment, which was a mixed action. The Common Law Pro cedure Act of 1860 has assimilated the procedure in the former to an ordinary action, and the Common Law Procedure Act of 1852 now regulates the proceedings in ejectment. In those and other respects the three Common Law Procedure Acts of 1852, 1854, and I860, very greatly simplified the proceedings in an action at law. The first of these rendered it unnecessary any longer to select a form of action in prosecuting a claim, and abolished many of the technicalities whioh had accompanied the older forms. The divi-