ACALEPH.E. 239 



sophora, tlius serve the same purpose as the stinging organs disposed 

 on the arms of the Hydrae, or on the external surface of the tentacles 

 and prolific polyps of the Vilellae. 



Can therQ be any animal form more graceful than Agalma rubra, 

 which is reproduced in Plate VII. from Vogt's Memoir ? This 

 beautiful creature is common in the Mediterranean, on the coast near 

 Nice, from November till the month of May. Towards the middle 

 of December Vogt found nearly fifty individuals in the space of an 

 hour, opposite to the Port of Nice, all following the same current, 

 a prodigious quantity of Salpse, Medusae, and small Pteropodean 

 Mollusks accompanying them. 



te I know nothing more graceful," says Vogt, " than this Agalma as 

 it floats along near the surface of the waters, its long, transparent, 

 garland-like lines extended, and their limits distinctly indicated by 

 bundles of a brilliant vermilion red, while the rest of the body is 

 concealed by its very transparency ; the entire organism always swims 

 in a slightly oblique position near the surface, but is capable of steering 

 itself in any direction with great rapidity. I have had in my posses- 

 sion some of these garlands more than three feet in length, in which 

 the series of air-bags measured more than four inches, so that in the 

 great vase in which I kept them the column of swimming bags 

 touched the bottom, while the aerial vesicle floated on the surface. 

 Immediately after its capture the columns contracted themselves to 

 such a point that they were scarcely perceptible, but when left to 

 repose in a spacious vase, all its shrunken appendages deployed them- 

 selves round the vase in the most graceful manner imaginable, the 

 column of swimming-bladders remaining immovable in their vertical 

 position, the air-bags at the surface, while the different appendages 

 soon began to play. The polyps, planted at intervals along the 

 common trunk of rose-colour, began to agitate themselves in all direc- 

 tions, taking a thousand odd forms ; the reproductive individuals, like 

 the tentacles, were contracting and twisting themselves about like so 

 many worms ; the tentacles were stirred, the ovarian clusters began to 

 dilate and contract, the spermatic air-bells agitated the waters with 

 their umbrellas, like the Medusae ; but what most excited my curiosity, 

 was the continuous action of the fishing-lines, which continued to 

 unroll and contract in a most surprising manner, retiring altogether 

 sometimes with the utmost precipitation. All who have witnessed 



