Luminousness of the Sea, 



315 



bag, open in the centre, and containing within it an elongated 

 body, fixed, as it were, upon a pedestal, and divided at the sum- 

 mit into four lobes. The mouth of the sac was set all round with 

 curved tentacula, somewhat resembling tadpoles, and attached 

 by their largest extremity, in number about fourteen. The 

 whole of these bodies, during the time the animal was under 

 the microscope, were in constant motion, the edges of the sac 

 contracting suddenly, and as quickly opening again; the central 

 body and the tentacula moving simultaneously. The natural 

 size of this interesting little animal was about that of a small 

 pin's head. A figure of a Medusa is given by Macartney, of 

 the natural size, which has some resemblance to this animal I 

 have described, but differing materially in many respects. 

 This which I have copied from Macartney's paper (Jig, 82. e), 

 may be compared with mine. The family resemblance is 

 sufficiently great to constitute them of the same genus. In ad- 

 dition to these animals, all of which may be perhaps referred 

 to the Medus« and Actinia tribe, there occurred two other 

 bodies of a different figure and construction, and apparently 

 animals. The first of these {Jig, 83. a) occurred in consider- 



able quantity, especially in the Straits of Malacca and in the 

 Java Sea ; and though I cannot say I observed these bodies 

 distinctly liuninous, they seldom occurred except at such 

 times as when the sea was vividly so. They are composed of 

 a series of short, oval, hollow tubes, quite transparent, finely 

 jointed to each other by a narrow neck, and so exceedingly 

 brittle that it was impossible to obtain any thing but frag- 



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