ANTHOZOA HYDEOIDA. 101 



Or ruder hand of man, turmoil excite 

 Throughout their briny realm, then brightly shine 

 These ocean gems, these glow-worms of the deep. — D. L. 



I shall now close these preliminary observations with an 

 extract from a letter from my kind friend Mr. Wigham, of 

 Norwich, received at the very time I was writing them, 

 though he knew not that I was so engaged. 



" In September we had a prodigious quantity of Flustra 

 tnembranacea and Laomedea geniculata on the Norfolk coast, 

 and, probably, on aU the east coast, as I saw remains of them 

 in Essex in the latter end of the month. The Flustra I had 

 never gathered before. There were waggon-loads of it, chiefly 

 on Fucus vesiculosiis and Fuciis nodosiis. The Laomedea 

 was on everything, — old branches of trees, cuttings of fir- 

 deals, chips, etc. ; and a piece of very hard cinder as big as 

 my fist was quite covered with it, and so beautifully phos- 

 phorescent, that long after it was dark I was strolling about 

 the beach at Cromer, stirring them up, and admiring their 

 surpassing beauty. The sea was beautifully luminous that 

 evening also, and I certainly thought that the zoophytes 

 being so very numerous would very well account for it, as 

 there must have been many billions of them in the water.''' 



