GLAUCUS, 119 
having a bluish colour of deadly hue for a short 
period, and then becoming of a blackish or brownish 
black colour. I have seldom seen a gelatinous 
animal which appeared so firm whilst in the water, 
that proved so speedily to decompose when removed 
from it. ven the beautiful purple of the back, 
the silver or enamel of the abdomen, and the 
silvery blue of the sides, all speedily vanish, indeed 
instantly disappear, upon the death of the animal, as 
if it had been washed off; the expansive, delicate, 
and beautiful fins, and digitated processes, are no 
longer seen; they shrink up to nothing. 
“ Even on taking the animal alive out of the 
water, and placing it upon the hand, that instant 
almost, from its extreme delicacy, it was destroyed. 
The digitations of the fins fell off, the least move- 
ment destroyed the beauty of the animal, it speedily 
lost all the purple and silvery enamelied tints, and 
became a loathsome mass. ‘Thus do we too often 
find animals, beautiful in external adornments, 
eurious in their habits and organization, and 
calculated in every respect to supply us with 
inexhaustible sources of intellectual gratification, 
doomed speedily to perish—brief in the period 
allotted to them in the busy theatre of animated 
existence: but, doubtless, with the gift of existence, 
they have received from the bounteous hand of their 
Creator, the means of enjoying their fleeting lives. 
“To place these little animals in the glass of 
water from the towing net, without injury to their 
delicate structure, required care; so that as soon as 
they were captured in the net, attached to the 
meshes, they were not handled, but carefully washed 
off, which was effected by dipping the meshes in the 
glass of water, when the animal soon detached 
