LONGPORT IN SEPTEMBER. lOg 



them, although many severe storms had intervened between 

 that time and their spawning- season. 



Of their beauty when in their prime Agassiz sa^'S : — 

 "There is hardly anything among Acalephs equal to the 

 beauty of the iridescence of the locomotive flappers of our 

 Idya, playing- with all the colors of the rainbow between the 

 rosy edges of its ambulacral zones." This description is 

 partially true even of the specimens found so late in the 

 season at Longport. Although the body wall was changed 

 in color and reduced in thickness to about a quarter, instead 

 of a whole inch, the cilia could have been imitated only with 

 material giving the richest of colors in pearly effects. 



If one were to imagine a thumbless mitten large enough 

 for the hand of a child of seven or eight years of age, it 

 would give a good idea of the form and size of these Idvas. 

 In the Lobatae the mouth is small. In the Beroidae , on the 

 contrary, the whole. end of the bag or pouch forming the body 

 is an open mouth, and this is so extensile that Agassiz 

 assures us he has seen an Idya swallow a Bolina alaia larger 

 than itself. 



Of the thirteen specimens brought in at Longport, none 

 took food, possibly because there was nothing in the vessel 

 for them to eat, and only one was sufficiently active to exhibit 

 conspicuous changes of form. This exceptionally lively one 

 would at times draw in its body and expand its mouth until 

 it became urn-shaped, and again turn its mouth inward and 

 close the opening until it assun:ed the form of a ball, between 

 three and four inches in diameter. It is quite possible that 

 it was suffering from hunger, as Agassiz describes Idya rose- 

 ola as a greedy animal, eating freely of Bolinas and Pleiiro- 

 brachia when all three were in the same vessel together. Not 

 remembering its tastes, we could not at the time supply 

 its needs. 



These Idyas, and all the other species of Ctcnophora in our 

 possession, were highly phosphorescent, and when the glass 

 vessel containing them was shaken, or the water stirred, the}' 



