Mr, Patterson on the Cydippe Pomiformis, 107 



So far as their absence from the surface during stormy weather may be regarded 

 as corroborative of this observation it is correct ; but the procedure appears to be 

 insufficient to defend them when near the coast from serious and often fatal 

 injury. On this subject I would refer to the diary published by me in the Edin- 

 burgh New Philosophical Journal for January, 1836, as to the weather of the 

 early part of May, 1835, considered in connexion with the number of Beroes 

 taken at various intervals during the same period. 



That they are more abundant in some seasons than in others, may be inferred 

 from the fact, that in the beginning of May, 1835, I took, in crossing the ferry 

 from the Corran to Island Magee and returning, so many as thirty-five. In the 

 same locality, in the apparently more genial month of June, 1838, the greatest 

 number I took in any one of twelve crossings, between the 5th and the 30th of 

 that month, was seven. On the 10th of September, however, in the same year, 

 and in the same place, I took the unusual number of forty-one. All of these 

 were small in size, the largest not exceeding four lines in length. 



Nearly a month later than this, I placed my net, &c. in the hands of my 

 friend Mr. W. Thompson, who, in the prosecution of his researches into our 

 marine productions, was going out for a day's dredging in the Belfast Lough. 

 In the evening he gave me the unexpected pleasure of seeing nearly eighty 

 Beroes, all of the present species, and rendered still more acceptable by the fol- 

 lowing note : 



" The entire of these were taken between ten and half-past twelve o'clock 

 this forenoon, the day being very calm and bright for the season ; the wind 

 easterly. The towing net was first placed In the water opposite to Holywood ; 

 about three quarters of an hour afterwards, near to Cralg-a-vade, it was found to 

 contain twenty specimens. In five minutes more thirty-six were taken, in the 

 next ten minutes eight, and In another quarter of an hour fifteen." 



The ensuing day, 6th October, my friend Mr. G. C. Hyndman, while en- 

 gaged in similar pursuits, employed my net with even greater success, and in the 

 same locality took nearly one hundred individuals, all of them similar to the 

 above. 



The present species appears to be extensively diffused around the Irish coast. 

 It has been taken at the Giant's Causeway by Mr. Hyndman ; in the Loughs of 

 Lame, Belfast, and Strangford, by the author, as already mentioned ; in the Bay 



p 2 



