80 ITS TENTACLES. 



May, I found the Sarsia even more abundant around 

 the boulders at the Nothe Point. They were ac- 

 cumulated by hundreds if not thousands, shooting 

 hither and thither near the surface of the clear water, 

 in the narrow interstices of the rocks, and in the little 

 inlets, borne in by the incoming flood-tide. 



The size, the perfect transparency, the elegant form, 

 and the extraordinary vivacity of this species render 

 it one of the most interesting of the Medusae, for keep- 

 ing in a glass vessel of sea-water. Its shape is that 

 of an ellipse, of which about a third has been cut off 

 at one end ; a tall bell of the purest crystal, a little 

 narrowed at the mouth. At four equi-distant points on 

 the margin of this bell are placed as many knobs, 

 within each of which is a bright red speck, and from 

 every one of the knobs depends a tentacle resem- 

 bling a slender thread. Often these threads are 

 shrivelled up till they are not more than a quarter of 

 an inch long ; more commonly they are about an inch 

 and a half in length, but occasionally, when the Sarsia 

 rests motionless in the water, a little turned over on 

 one side, its tentacles are allowed to hang down in the 

 deep to a great length ; five inches I have seen them 

 extended, as measured by a rule placed against the 

 side of the glass. When thus stretched, they appear 

 like a thread of excessive tenuity ; but if you look very 

 closely you may see even with the naked eye that it is 

 not a simple thread, but rather a string of the most 

 minute white beads, which when placed under the 

 microscope are discovered to be a series of thickened 

 knobs, arranged in an imperfect spiral round the cen- 

 tral filament. 



