246 AMPHITRITE. 



warts or prominences occupied their place, though I cannot speak con- 

 fidently of the fact. 



From the long luxuriant fringes and incurvature of the branchiae, 

 the expanded plume resembles the double corolla of a fine flower. 



A transparent, tubular, thick gelatinous mass constitutes the dwell- 

 ing of this animal, of very different appearance from the receptacles of 

 the two preceding species. It has none of the regular form belonging to 

 either. The side is not under an eighth of an inch in thickness,, or once 

 and a half the diameter of the body, and sometimes more ; it also ex- 

 ceeds the length of the body considerably. It is originally quite diapha- 

 nous and invisible, free of all adventitious matter, and seems entirely the 

 product of an animal secretion. Sometimes it has been seen of a slight 

 silky aspect, but it may almost always be compared to a gelatinous mass, 

 which is affixed to an extraneous substance. 



The tenants of two such tubular habitations, each with a wide ori- 

 fice, having been dislodged, they speedily generated a quantity of the 

 most transparent jelly. But their plumes becoming mutually entangled 

 from want of room, one of the specimens was transferred to a short glass 

 tube, suspended in a different vessel. Here, it formed itself a copious 

 covering in a week or less, apparently filling the cavity ; and, in time, 

 the jelly projected beyond the mouth of the tube. At length, when the 

 animal rose upwards, the jelly rose along with it, as much as nine lines 

 above the edge of the orifice of the glass tube. Along with the expan- 

 sion of the plume, the centre of the gelatinous matter expanded also ; 

 on the other hand, as the plume contracted the diameter of the jelly 

 contracted ; and if the animal sunk, the tubular orifice was depressed 

 along with it and closed. All this gelatinous substance could not be 

 under ten or twelve times the weight of the tenant ; yet, from excessive 

 transparence, it then proved impossible to determine the precise outline 

 of the jelly, nor until slightly darkened beyond the glass tube, when it 

 appeared conical. 



If this tube, withdrawn from the water, be inverted, the jelly ad- 

 hering within it hangs down from the orifice like a compact tenacious mass. 



