VOL. L.] PHILOSOPHICAL TfiANSACTIONS. 131 



breast, belly, thighs, covert- feathers withinside the wings and under the tail, 

 are white : the top and hinder part of the head is black. The lower part of the 

 neck behind, and the back are of a blueish ash or slate-colour, with a mixture 

 of blackish or dusky : the upper sides of the wings and tail are of a blackish or 

 dusky colour : the tips of the covert of the wings are white ; the tips of the 

 middlemost or shortest of the quills are also white, and form white transverse 

 bars across the wings. Two or three of the middle quills are wholly white, and 

 all of them have their inner webs white toward their bottoms. It has 12 feathers 

 in the tail ; the outermost of which, on each side, is edged with white. The 

 covert-feathers on the rump, or upper side of the tail, are dusky and white. 

 The legs are bare of feathers above the knees (as they are in most birds that 

 wade in shallow waters,) and of an ash colour. • 



XXXII. Description of Several Small Marine Animals, by Job Baster^ M.D^, 



F. R. S. p. 258. 



Dr. Baster's arguments, relative to the supposed vegetable nature of corallines, 

 being recapitulated in Mr. Ellis's answer, it is unnecessary to preserve that part 

 of the present paper. We shall therefore translate only the part in which he 

 describes various small marine animals; some allied to the polype tribe, and 

 others of different families. 



' If the sea water round our coasts be moved by night, either by throwing a' 

 stone into it, or by a stick, it exhibits innumerable fiery sparks, which are no 

 other than minute shining animalcules, requiring a good microscope to show 

 them distinctly. In order to collect these animalcules in sufficient plenty, the 

 way is to take a quantity of sea- water in which they abound, and to strain it 

 through a filtering paper, till only the quantity of about half an ounce, or less, 

 remains on the paper : of this water a small drop, placed in a concave glass, and 

 viewed by a microscope of considerable power, will exhibit them swimming very 

 briskly about. Dr. B. observed three species, which are represented from the 

 life at plate 5 . fig. 22. 



But the sea nourishes other animals in which this lucid quality exists, and of 

 which some that were found in corallines are shown, fig. 25, 26, 28, 29 ; but 

 these he does not particularize, since several authors have written concerning 

 them. 



If a large plant of coralline fresh taken from the sea, be placed in a China- 

 dish, the bottom of which is of a deep blue colour, in a sufficient quantity of 

 very clear and filtered sea-water, and its branches be carefully expanded, and 

 viewed by a magnifier, one may often see a wood, as it were, in which a great 

 rhiany animals live, exclusive of various kinds of polypes infixed in the branches 

 arid extending their arms : there are also still several others, especially in the 



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