ITS LUMINOSITY. 347 



tapped the glass jar in which two specimens were 

 floating at the surface, with my finger-nails, instantly 

 each became brilliantly visible as a narrow ring of 

 light, the whole marginal canal becoming luminous. 

 On my touching them with the end of a stick, the 

 light became more vivid, and round spots appeared 

 here and there in the ring, of intense lustre and of a 

 greenish-blue tint. These were, I doubt not, the ten- 

 tacle-bulbs, and any one of them would be excited to 

 this intensity by my touching that part of the margin 

 with the stick. The luminosity of the ring was not 

 so evanescent as in some species, lasting several 

 seconds, and continuing to be renewed as often as I 

 molested the animal. The two circles of light, two 

 inches or more in diameter, were very beautiful as 

 they moved freely in the water, sinking or rising ac- 

 cording as they were touched, now seen in full rotun- 

 dity, now shrinking to an oval, or to a line, as either 

 turned sidewise to the eye ; and reminded me of the 

 rings of glory in the pictures of the Italian school, 

 round the heads of saints. 



A very fine Mquorea has lately been found by 

 Professor Forbes inhabiting the Scottish seas, and 

 has been described by him under the name of 

 JEquorea Fo7'skalii, in a Memoir read before the 

 Zoological Society of London. The present differs 

 in many important particulars from that species, 

 which I think it surpasses in beauty, and nearly equals 

 in size. The proportionate thickness of the umbrella 

 and sub-umbrella; the radiating canals, in the one 

 abruptly, in the other very gradually merging into 

 the stomach ; the simply furhelowed lips of the sto- 



