330 COMMON OBJECTS OF THE SHORE. 



The globular beroe is common on many parts 

 of our sea-coast. It has been found at Sheerness, 

 and is by no means unfrequent at Dovor. The 

 fishermen say of it, that it is the spawn of the sea- 

 egg. Some of the species are to be found in most 

 seas, swimming along with great rapidity, by 

 means of their myriads of minute cilia. Like the 

 other acalephs, it is not possible to preserve them 

 for any length of time. 



The colour of the Greenland sea, varying from 

 ultra-marine to olive-green, was found by Mr. 

 Scoresby to be caused by the innumerable jelly- 

 fish of the tribe of medusae which swarm there. 

 These animals are found in the bluish-green water 

 in great profusion, but in the olive-green they are 

 innumerable. Mr. Scoresby calculated that a cubic 

 fathom of this water would contain 23,000,872 indi- 

 viduals; andacubicalmile, 23,888,000,000,000,000. 

 He adds, that allowing even that the depth to 

 which these animals extend be but two hundred 

 and fifty fathoms, the above immense number of 

 one species may occur in the space of two miles 

 square. And in order to give a better idea of the 

 amount of medusas than the mind can gather by 

 reading statements made in a large number of 

 arithmetical figures, he says : " Allowing that one 

 person could count a million in seven days, which 

 is barely possible, it would have required that 

 eighty thousand persons should have started at the 

 creation of the world, to complete the enumeration 

 at the present time." Twenty or thirty thousand 

 square miles of this sea are thus coloured by the 

 medusae; how then shall the mind of finite man 

 conceive of the numbers of these living creatures, 



