ACAI.KI'il.i;.— SliA-XKTTI.E.S. 



plied by an empty one; tlie divers continuiug at work 

 iiiilil tliornuglily exhausted, or until the sun sank too low 

 bencatli the horizon fur the fish to be readily discerned. 



The llolothuria of R.iflles' Bay measures from five 

 to six inches in length, and about two inches in dia- 

 meter ; it is a gross ileshy mass, slightly cylindrical in 

 form, but with no visible external organ. It adheres 

 to the rocks at the sea-bottou], and as it can only 

 move with extraordinary deliberation, is easily cap- 

 tured by the Malayan divpis. 



For the purpose of curing them they are thrown, 

 while alive, itito a vessel of boiling sea-water, and 

 freipicntly stirred by means of a long pole, which is 

 supported on another pole fixed in the earth, and 

 aciing as a lever. This process, which occupies two 

 minutes, cleanses the trepang of all the water con- 

 tained in its body. A man wiih a large knife then 

 extracts the entrails, and the fish is thrown into a 

 second cauldron, containing but a small quantity of 

 water fl.ivoured with mimosa bark. The object of 

 lliis second operation is to smoke the animal in order 

 (0 preserve it more thoroughly, and during its con- 

 tinuance all the baik is consumed. The trepang is 

 afterwards placed upon hurdles, and dried in the sun. 



The price of trepang in the Chinese market is about 

 thirty sliillings the pekul, a pekul being equal to about 

 one hundred and twenty-five pounds. The fishing 

 kists for tliree months, and occupies a great number 

 of vessels; as many as two hundred being despatched 

 from JIadagascar alone. 



Among the Ilolothurias, tlie genus Synapta is 

 specially distinguislied by the absence of tiie ambu- 

 lacra! feet, and by the union of both sexes in the same 

 individual. This remarkable Eehinoderm was disco- 

 vered in the Channel by M. de Quatrcfa^es, who 

 describes it with graphic vigour in his " Souvenirs 

 d'un Naturaliste :" — ■ 



"Imagine," ho says, "a cylinder of rose-coloured 

 crystal, as much as eighteen inches in length, and 

 more than an inch in diameter, traversed for its entiie 

 extent by five narrow ribbons of while silk, and its 

 head crowned by a living flower, whose twelve tentacles 

 of purest snow droop behind in a graceful curve. In 

 the centre of these tissues, which rival in delicacy the 

 most exquisite products of the loom, imagine a mem- 

 brane of the thinnest gauze crowded from end to end 

 with coarse grains of granite, whose sharp edges and 

 rugged points are clearly perceptible to the naked eye. 



"But what at first sight was specially noticeable in 

 this animal was, that it litoralh- seemed to have no 

 other nourishment than the coarse sand whicli sur- 

 rounded it. And then, when armed with scalpel and 

 microscope, I discovered something of its organization, 

 what incredible marvels were revealed to me ! In 

 this body, whose walls scarcely approach the sixteenth 

 part of an inch in thickness, I could distinguish seven 

 distinct layers of tissue, with a skin, muscles, and 

 membranes. Upon the pentaloid tentacles I coidd 

 delect the terminal suckers, by whose means the Syn- 

 apla could crawd up the side of the most polished vase. 

 In fine, this creature which, at the first glance, 

 appeared to be deficient in every appliance of defence 

 or oll'encc, I found to be protected by a kind of mosaic, 



composed of small cali-areous bucklers, brisiling with 

 double hooks, whose points, denlated like the arrowu 

 of the Caribs, had seized \ipon my hand.-." 



If a Synapta be preserved in sea-wixter for a while, 

 and deprived of food, the spectator will be astonished 

 by a singular phenomenon. Unable to feed itself, the 

 animal successively throws off various portions of its 

 own body, which it amputates spontaneously. A deep 

 ring-like compression having first been induced, the 

 separation of the condenmed part quite suddenly 

 occurs. It would seem as if the animal, in the know- 

 ledge that it had not suflicient food to support its 

 entire body, was able gradually to reduce its size, by 

 suppressing the parts most difficult to be nourished, 

 just as we should dismiss the most useless mouths from 

 a besieged city. 



We are told that the Synapta continues this singu- 

 lar mode of meeting a famine up to the last moment, 

 when, in fact, all that remains of it is a round ball, 

 surmounted by its tentacles. In order to preserve 

 life in its head, it has saciificed all the other paits of 

 its body. 



ACALEPIliE. 



The class kcalcpTuc, from dxoX^^i], a nettle, have 

 derived their scientific name from the stinging proper- 

 ties with which many of the genera are endowed. They 

 are also popularly known as Jelbj-fishcs and Sca-bliilben:, 

 from the extreme softness of their tissues, wdiich melt 

 away upon tlieir removal from the water. They form 

 the third class of Cuvicr's Zoophytes, and belong to the 

 Kadiata. Their shape is circular, and there is only 

 one opening into the body, which opening serves both 

 for mouth and vent. Although possessed of a certain 

 amount of locomotive power, their movements are 

 weak, ineflicient, and uncertain ; and being, therefore, 

 at the mercy of the winds and waves, they are cast 

 U[ion the shore in great numbers, where they perish 

 on the recession of the tide. 



The genus Medusas may be taken as the type of this 

 remarkable order; and their characteristics are sufii- 

 ciently interesting to merit afull and detailed description. 



The Medusas are distinguished by their mushroom- 

 shaped disc, which has aptly been compared to an 

 expanded umbrella. The edges, as well as the mouth 

 and tentacles, are more or less prolonged into pedicles, 

 which occupy the centre of tlie under surface, and are 

 furnished with numerous tentacula, varying in Ibrm 

 and size according to the dilferent species. 



Internally the substance of the disc presents one 

 uniform cellular appearance, but owing to the exiremo 

 softness of the cellular substance it is impossible to 

 delect a trace of fibre. Taken from its native element, 

 and laid upon a stone, a Medusa weighing fifty omices 

 will rapidly diminish to five or six, melting into a kind 

 of liquid, whence Spallanzani concluded that the .sea- 

 water penetrated the organic texture of its substance, 

 and constituted the principal volume of the animal. 



On this point Mr. Patterson justly observes, that the 

 extremely small quantity of solid matter entering into 

 their compusiliuu iucrcascs our wonder at the vaiious 



