316 Descriptions and Figures 



observable, being transparent, and nearly of the colour of the 

 sea. The end of each tentaculum is furnished with two rows 

 of small, globular, sessile glands. The tentacula are of 

 unequal lengths, and continually in motion. Fig. 36. d is the 

 under part : the mouth is situated in the centre, in the form 

 of a little sac. Some of the above, which I kept in salt 

 water for a night, were dissolved by morning; the ten- 

 tacula and border giving a slight purple tinge to the water, 

 and the brown part falling to the bottom like small grains of 

 sand, leaving a white transparent substance, about the size 

 and consistence of a wafer, floating on the water." — A. M. 



Remarks. — This beautiful creature is a kind of sea jelly 

 (class Radiaires, order Mollosses, section Anomales, La- 

 marck\ and belongs to the genus P6rpita of Lamarck, or to 

 the more restricted genus Poly brach ion ia of the Rev. Lans- 

 down Guilding. In the third volume of the Zoological Journal, 

 p. 404., this enthusiastic naturalist has described a species 

 nearly related to the one now figured, which possibly may 

 have been hitherto unnoticed. The centre of Jig. 36. b is 

 buff orange streaked with yellowish brown, encircled with a 

 narrow band of China blue, and a broader one of Berlin blue ; 

 and from this the arms seemed to radiate. In Jig. 36. c the 

 centre is imperial purple, marked with two dark circular 

 bands, and with numerous radiating lines, and bounded by a 

 pale circle, exterior to which there is a China blue line, and 

 then a pale blue circle edged with a neat somewhat indented 

 and scored border. The inferior surface {d) seems imperfectly 

 drawn : it is of a wood-brown colour, roughened with nume- 

 rous small tubercles ; the mouth projecting from the centre 

 in the form of a short cylindrical proboscis. 



I am inclined to consider this species distinct from the 

 Poly brach ionia Linnaea«« of Mr. Guilding. In the latter, 

 the glands on the arms are stalked, and more diffused along 

 the margins ; in ours, the glands are sessile, and almost con- 

 fined to the summits. There are some differences in colour, 

 which are obviously, however, of no importance; and the 

 absence of the proper tentacula from the ventral surface, in 

 Jig. 36. d, cannot be reckoned upon as a distinctive character, 

 as it is probable they have been broken off when the crea- 

 ture was captured. Whether it is the same as the Porpita 

 glandifera of Lamarck, I have not the means of determining. 



" Fig. 37. e is a magnified representation of^ In this the 

 tentacula were less numerous, 4-partite at the end, each division 

 being furnished with only a single gland, g is the magnified 

 representation of h, furnished with a transparent inflated sac ; 

 tentacula the same as e and J. These were all taken up in lat. 



