SEA-BELLS. 127 



one tuft of the parasitic plants and it was rare to find a 

 Rhodomela of any size without one at least/' 



"The specimens were evidently the young of the season : 

 but many were no larger than I have named; but some 

 were ■ as much as one-third of an inch in diameter. They 

 were very beautiful, closely resembling a bell or trumpet- 

 mouthed monopetalous flower, with a short flexible foot- 

 stalk, and a small, expanded, sucking disc at the base. The 

 substance was clear, transparent, gelatinous ; the flower- 

 like expansion thin and filmy, with the margin projecting 

 into eight equidistant points. Troui each of these points 

 radiated about twenty slender tentacular threads, bearing at 

 their extremities orange or yellow globules. The ovaries 

 radiated in eight irregular bands from the centre of the 

 flower to the marginal points, and from the centre itself 

 projected a little, protrusile, four-cleft mouth, closely like 

 the peduncle of a Thaumantias. Indeed I was strongly 

 struck with the resemblance which the entire creature bore 

 to a small Medusa, and T consider it as a link that connects 

 the normal ActinuB wdth the Acaleplm!' 



LiicernaricB are found at low water on the under sides of 

 floating leaves of Zoster a, mouth downwards, seeking for 

 prey. Here, in their natural situation, they are believed to 



