3-i NAKED-EYED MEDUSA. 



that neither bead nor beny was ever seen of such perfect grace 

 and beauty as these tiny Jelly-fish display. In size the Medusa* 

 differ from one another still more than in form, the group includ- 

 ing the largest as well as the most minute of all the Jelly-fish. 

 A huge creature (Illiizostoma Cuvieri), which is occasionally 

 thrown upon our own shores, measures three or four feet in 

 diameter ; and in the warmer seas, individuals of this size are by 

 no means uncommon. Then, at the other extremity of the scale, 

 there are species so minute as to be truly microscopic, and which 

 swarm in the ocean to an extent perfectly inconceivable. 



The Medusae are separated into two groups or divisions, dis- 

 tinguished from each other by the presence or absence of certain 

 delicate membranes or hoods, which in some of the species are 

 found covering the eye-like spots, already referred to, around 

 the margin of the body. No one has so carefully investigated 

 the structure and habits of the naked-eyed Medusa) as the late 

 Professor Edward Forbes, and, in the splendid work from which 

 we have already quoted, he has given us an elaborate and philo- 

 sophical, though no less popular, account of the British species 

 of this division of the Jelly-fish. Some day, perhaps, a second 

 Edward Forbes may arise to give the world a monograph of the 

 covered-eyed Medusas ; but for the present that work is a desidera- 

 tum, and our knowledge of the animals is somewhat meagre and 

 obscure. One of the members of this group is that unwelcome 

 visitor to bathing-places, whose unamiable qualities have already 

 been referred to ; another is the Medusa aurita, the common Jelly- 

 fish of our coasts, about whose early history we shall have a strange 

 story to tell by-and-by ; and a third is the beautiful Chrysaora 

 hyoscetta, a species by no means uncommon around the southern 

 coast, and one which, with its delicate amber tints, and its long 

 trailing tentacles and elegant furbelowed arms, arrests the atten- 

 tion and excites the admiration of the most incurious of sea- 

 side visitors. 



The naked-eyed Medusas also comprise some very beautiful 

 forms. Few of the species are of large size, and some are ex- 

 tremely small. One little fellow, Oceania ylobitlosu, is not larger 

 than a pea, and, seen in its native element, a very pretty pea 

 it makes. Another of these tiny Jelly-fish is Turris neglecta, 

 not uncommon in the Solent and around the Isle of Wight, 

 and which, sporting in the water, is " brilliant as a bud of 



