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these moUiiscas^ resemble alci/oniums, and are 

 attached to rocks, covered hy the water, from 

 whence thcv are torn by the waves and driven on 

 the sliore. The inhabitants of Chili cat the 

 pyures, either boiled or roasted in the shells, and 

 when fresh they have the taste of a lobster. 

 Great quantities of thcni are dried annually and 

 sent to Cujo, where they are in great request. I 

 believe the animal which Kolben, in his descrip- 

 tion of the Cape of Good Hope, calls the sea 

 fountain, is of the same family. 



Various species of the holothuria, especially 

 the holofiiuria pliy salts, or the galley, are fre- 

 queniiy found upon the shore, whither the3^ are 

 driven by the waves. Tliis mollusca, called by 

 several authors the sea nettle, from its producing 

 an inflammation of the skin when touched, is of 

 the shape and size of an ox-blalder filled with 

 air. It is furnished within with a great number 

 of branching feelers, or tentaculs, intertwined 

 with each other, in the centre of which is placed 

 the mouth, of a very deformed appearance. 



These tentaculae are of several colours, red, 

 purple or blue; the skin that forms the vesicle or 

 bladder is transparent, and appears to consist of 

 diflerent longitudinal and transverse fibres, within 

 which a peristaltic motion is perceptible. The 

 top of this bladder is ornamenled with a mem- 

 brane in (he shape of a crest, wliich serves the 

 animal as a sail, and cont las notliing excepiiug 



