284 Professor Owen on Cullecting 



Annals of Science ; and the best idea by the study of Ehrenberg's 

 great work, Entwickelung Lebensdauer und Struktur der Magen- 

 thiere und Rdderthiere, 8fc., folio, 1832. The important relations 

 of these minutest forms of animal life to great questions in geology, 

 to the alteration of coast-lines, and to the phenomena of oceanic 

 luminosity, make it indispensable to include them in directions for 

 collecting facts in natural history. 



Whenever the surface of the sea presents a difference of colour 

 and density, in the form of pellicles, streaks, or shining oil-like 

 spots, lift up portions by dipping in thin plates of mica, or stout 

 paper, and raising them horizontally ; dry these and preserve them 

 in a book, noting the latitude and longitude, the time of day, and 

 the temperature of the sea. The animalcules remain attached to the 

 pieces of paper or mica employed in their capture, and may be de- 

 termined by subsequent microscopical observation. 



Where the sea seems pure and colourless, a bucketful may be 

 raised and strained through fine linen ; by repeating this act, a poi- 

 tion will commonly remain on the filter, which is then generally 

 rich in invisible animalcules, and should be preserved in small glass 

 bottles or tubes, with a buble of air between the cork or stopper, 

 and the water. Any visible gelatinous acalephse should be removed 

 and placed in spirit of wine, or the solution No. 1. Specimens of 

 sea-water thus saturated with animalcules should be prepared at 

 each degree of latitude and longitude traversed on the voyage, by 

 which means the geographical distribution of these minute organisms 

 may be ascertained, when the species so collected are determined, 

 after the voyage, by microscopic observation. 



Small bottles or tubes of the water of each mineral spring or hot 

 spring should be preserved for the same purpose. In a deposit from 

 melted pancake-ice from the Barrier, in 78° 10' S. lat., 162° W. 

 long., brought home in Ross's antarctic voyage, Elirenberg de- 

 tected of siliceous-shelled polygastria fifty-one species, including four 

 new genera; siliceous phytolitharia, twenty-four species; and of cal- 

 careous-shelled polythalmia, four species. Small packets of the 

 sand of each coast that may be visited, and of the sand or mud 

 brought up with the anchor or the sounding-line, should be pre- 

 served ; the localities or latitude and longitude being precisely noted 

 in each case. 



Acaleph(B (^Sea-blubber or Medusce, Portuguese Men-of-war, Jelly- 

 Fish, and other floating Marine Gelatinous Animals.) 



The brilliant but evanescent hues of many of this class of animals 

 can only be preserved by coloured drawings executed at the time of 

 capture. The solution. No. 1, will suffice for the preservation of 

 the animals themselves, provided it be changed after they have re- 

 mained in it about twenty-four hours, for most of the gelatinous 



