MARINE MISCELLANEA. 237 



Chapter with the more express purpose of demonstrating the potentialities of the 

 camera for rendering marine zoological subjects in a state of active locomotion in 

 their native element. In each instance the camera has been arranged vertically, in 

 conjunction with the apparatus figured in Plate XXVII. of the author's book on the 

 " Great Barrier Reef," and described at length in that volume. Bright sunshine falling 

 uninterruptedly upon the subjects and an instantaneous shutter were necessarily indis- 

 pensable accessories. In the first picture we have a group of eight young turtles, 

 Chelone mydas, collected at the Lacepede Islands just as they had tumbled out of their 

 egg-shells on an adjacent sand bank, and were liberated for their first swim in a 

 large basin of sea-water. A few sprays of sargassum weed were added to the water 

 with the double intent of garnishing the picture, and of in some measure restraining 

 the almost too exuberant gyrations of the infant Chelonians. A few of the more 

 characteristic attitudes of the limbs during consecutive phases of natation is well 

 exemplified in this illustration. 



The picture opposite to the turtles, Plate XLII, portrays a score of a remarkably 

 beautiful jelly fish collected among the reef-pools in King's Sound, which were 

 in a like manner photographed as they swam freely in a basin of sea-water. These 

 jelly-fish are represented to a scale of about one-third of their natural size, and in 

 life were variously tinted with soft shades of olive and bottle-green, scarcely two 

 specimens being precisely alike. While referable to the group of the Discomedusse, 

 and among these to the sub-order of the Rhizostomae, it has not been found pos- 

 sible as yet to identify them with any previously described species, and they may 

 possibly prove to be new to science. A marked peculiarity in their habits was their 

 tendency to float with their mouths and tentacles uppermost and to lie in that 

 position in the reef shallows, presenting under those conditions a considerable re- 

 semblance to certain of the branching-armed sea anemones, such as Phymanthus or 

 Heterodactyla. 



Combining, as is befitting, the utile cum duleA, we might suggest that charming 

 designs for an original dinner-service might be evolved from the foregoing and 

 cognate zoological subjects. Could, for instance, a pattern be more appropriate than 

 Plate XLI, for the serving up of Calapash and Calipee at my Lord Mayor's banquet ? 

 The jelly-fish, again, would pass muster with the arrival of the glacees. Should, in 

 fact, any enterprising firm be smitten with the "notion," we have in our mind ideas 

 galore wherewith to decorate and adorn the Minton or other delf for the most 

 gargantuan feast. 



