

OCT. 1768 MARINE ANIMALS ! 5 



and bones of fishes which this animal must continually 

 swallow without separating them from the flesh. From the 

 outside of its scales we took a small animal which seemed 

 to be a louse (if I may so call it), as it certainly stuck to 

 him, and preyed upon the juices which it extracted by 

 suction, probably much to his disquiet : it proved to be 

 Monoculus piscinus, Linn. Baster has given a figure of it in 

 his " Opera Subseciva," but has by some unlucky accident 

 mistaken the head for the tail. Inside the fish were also 

 found two animals which preyed upon him; one Fasciola 

 pelami, Mss., in his very flesh, though near the membrane 

 which covers the intestines ; the other Sipunculus piscium, 

 Mss., in the stomach. 



2nd. This morning two swallows were about the ship, 

 though we must now be sixty leagues at least from any land ; 

 at night one of them was taken, and proved to be Hirundo 

 domestica, Linn. 



4ith. I went out in a boat and took Dagysa strumosa, 

 Medusa porpita, which we had before called azurea, Mimus 

 volutator J and a Cimex, which runs upon the water here in the 

 same manner as C. lacustris does in our ponds in England. 

 Towards evening two small fish were taken under the stern ; 

 they were following a shirt which was towing, and showed 

 not the least signs of fear, so that they were taken with a 

 landing-net without the smallest difficulty. They proved to 

 be Balistes monoceros, Linn. 



*7th. Went out in the boat, and took what is called by 

 the seamen a Portuguese man-of-war, Holothuria physalis,- 

 Linn., also Medusa velella, Linn., Onidium spinosum, Mss., 

 Diodon erinaceus, Mss., Dagysa mtrea, Mss., Helix ianthina, 

 Linn., violacea, Mss., and Procellaria oceanica, Mss. The 

 Holothuria proved to be one of the most beautiful 

 sights I had ever seen ; it consisted of a small bladder, in 

 shape much like the air-bladder of a fish, from the 

 bottom of which descended a number of strings of bright 

 blue and red, some three or four feet in length ; if touched, 



1 This cannot be identified. 



2 The Portuguese man-of-war is now known as Physalia, and is classed 

 among the Ccelentemta. 



