260 OCTOBER. 



days, and was a most striking and beautiful object : it 

 generally lay quite upright in the water, the slightest 

 ripple upon the surface of which set it in motion ; and 

 immediately coiling up its fishing lines, and shortening 

 the length of its stolon by about one-third, it threw its 

 set of little balloons into strong pulsations, until, weary 

 of descending, it submitted to be guided by its brightly 

 glittering head, and soon ascended to the surface. When 

 subjected to examination it soon died, and was not long 

 until it had completely broken itself up." 1 



The nectocalyx or swimming-bell is, however, seen in 

 a much more developed condition in the delicate forms 

 which swarm in our harbours and about our rocky 

 coasts in summer and early autumn, and are known by 

 the name of Naked- eyed Medusae. A common and 

 very characteristic example of this order is the Tongued 

 Sarsia, 2 in which a single swimming-bell forms the 

 greatest portion of the whole creature. It is a tall 

 dome of crystalline colourless flesh, thick at the summit 

 and thinning off at the edges ; about half an inch in 

 height. From the interior of this dome hangs the single 

 polypite, exactly as the clapper hangs from the top of 

 a belL It is long and cylindrical, abruptly attenuated 



* Op. dt. 



1 Sarsia tubulosa ; a group is represented of the size, of life, in the lower 

 right-hand comer of Plate xxvin. 



