102 Prof. M'Intosh's Notes from the 



stage carried about without effort by the Med asse ; and as there 

 is abundance of nourishment of a suitable kind around, it is 

 not necessary to limit the view only to the possibility of their 

 feeding on Thaumantias, for by the use of the tentacles as 

 organs of attachment the mouth may at any time be set free. 

 Further, Actinias form a favourite food of many fishes, e. g. 

 the cod, haddock, whiting, and others, while the stomachs of 

 flounders are frequently distended with Edwardsice. The 

 floating larvse of Feachia' thus increase the supplies for the 

 pelagic young of the food- fishes, and borne near the sand by 

 the Medusse, are placed within easy reach of the active 

 Pleuronectidge. 



4. On the Presence of Swarms of Ajjpendicularians. 



Appendicularians have long been familiar in Scottish 

 waters. Thus Edward Forbes, when off the north coast of 

 Scotland in 1845, found that the cloudy patches of red 

 colouring-matter in the water consisted almost entirely of the 

 bodies of the " curious and anomalous creature called Appen- 

 dicularia " *. During the expeditions in connexion with the 

 Trawling Commission, so ably presided over by Lord Dal- 

 housie, Appendicularians w^ere frequently met with in the 

 ordinary tow-nets, which were sunk by a heavy weight a 

 fathom or two in the water. Most of us, however, were 

 unaware that in April and early May at any rate the inshore 

 waters occasionally teem with this interesting type — so pro- 

 fusely, indeed, that they and their " houses " are ready to 

 rupture the huge mid-water net. Their activity when fresh 

 can only be compared to that of spermatozoa, as they dash 

 everywhere through the water either in a complete state or 

 only represented by tails. None of these showed the pinkish 

 hue so often seen in 1884, yet the reproductive organs were 

 fairly developed. They also evidently feed freely, as the glass 

 vessels in which they were kept were littered with small 

 brownish, cylindrical, fsecal masses, which at the time were 

 associated with the pale greenish gelatinous masses described 

 under No. 1 altered by digestion. During the month in 

 which they were more or less under observation in the bay 

 their size increased considerably. Their disappearance again 

 in May was apparently as sudden as their advent in such 

 enormous numbers in April. 



It is noteworthy that some, such as Prof. Huxley, have 

 failed to capture them in their " houses," though, as in the 

 latter case, the animals themselves were in vast numbers on 



* Hist. Brit. Molhisca, vol. iv. p. 245. 



