MEDUSAE OR JELLY-FISH. 35 



laborious exertion. At such a period, in a retired locality on 

 the Antrim coast, the ever-graceful Beroes first attracted our 

 attention, and made the summer day seem too short for the 

 inquiries and researches which they suggested. 



A species larger than the Cydippe, and different in form, is 

 also generally diffused round our coast. Its occurrence is more 

 rare, yet it sometimes appears in such abundance, that in 

 Bangor Bay, County Down, we took, on one occasion, one 

 hundred and thirty of them in twenty-five minutes. Its body 

 is more fragile, its movements less active, and it is furnished 

 with four ear-like appendages, which are ever changing in 

 their form. When the water in which it is kept is shaken at 

 night, or in a dark place, splendid coruscations, of a beautiful 

 greenish light, are emitted, especially under the several bands 

 of cilia. On one occasion we placed some specimens of this 

 species (Bolina Hibernicci)* in a jar on the chimney-piece, 

 and so transparent were the bodies, that the blossoms of some 

 flowers which were also there were distinctly seen through 

 them. It was impossible to look upon these bright-tinted 

 blossoms of earth, and on those colourless, yet not less delicate 

 children of ocean, and not feel that both must have enjoyed 

 the guardianship of Him from whom all their loveliness was 

 derived ; that He who had for ages preserved the flowers 

 from perishing by frost, or wind, or rain, had likewise saved 

 the Beroes from destruction, amid the wild tempests of the 

 ocean. 



The other great division of the Acalepha? is that to which 

 the jelly-fish, which is so abundantly strewed upon the beach 

 during the summer months, belongs. This group is divided 

 into many genera, comprising about three hundred species. 

 Some are furnished with a central peduncle, and resemble a 

 mushroom with its stalk; others have its place supplied by 

 prehensile arms; some have one simple Central mouth, in 

 others both its structure and position are different; in some 

 the margin is furnished with long contractile tentacula, whence 

 the well-known stinging secretion is supplied; in others, this 

 formidable apparatus is altogether wanting. These differences, 

 which are easily observable, enable the naturalist to classify 

 the gelatinous Medusae, for such is their collective appellation, 



Their locomotion is effected by the contraction and expansion 



* Trans. Ix. I. Academy, vol. xix. p. 15G. 



