84 THE ANGLED LAOMEDEA. 



crawls completely out of the water, a habit which I 

 have not observed in the EoUdes. 



THE ANGLED LAOMEDEA. 



The elegant zoophyte itself, on which the Mollusca 

 just described were living, was eminently worthy of 

 admiration. I mean the Laomedea geniculata. I 

 have called it a forest^ for the slender zigzag stems 

 shoot up in crowded rows like trees in a wood, from 

 a creeping root that meanders over the sea-weed, 

 every angle of the stem beai'ing a glassy cell inhabited 

 by a many-tentacled polype. 



The frond had not been in my possession many 

 hours before I observed, on holding up to the light 

 the phial in which I had placed it, one of those deli- 

 cate little medusa-like objects that Mr. Peach and 

 others have described, dancing through the water. 

 Presently another appeared, and then another, and in 

 the course of an hour or two, there must have been 

 scores of them, playing about in the most entertaining 

 manner. The naked eye readily detects them, and can 

 even distinguish their form, which is that of a circular 

 disk, or rather a shallow vase with a foot, and fringed 

 all round the edge with slender threads about as long 

 as the diameter of the disk. (Plate IV. fig. 4.) The 

 little creatures are very active and sprightly, making 

 their way rapidly through the water, by a sort of flap- 

 ping motion of all the marginal threads together ; an 

 action which, when viewed in profile, could not fail to 

 remind the observer of the flight of a flagging- winged 

 bird ; but so exquisitely delicate is the tiny creature, 



