CLIO BOREALIS. 65 



thousands of seals liere must devour. The 

 basis of all this gormandising is undoubtedly ■ 

 the Medusae or Jelly-fish, which in places 

 are so numerous, as actually to thicken and 

 discolour the sea ! Conspicuous amongst these 

 are the small black animalculse, popularly 

 known to the Norwegian frequenters of these 

 regions as " Hval-spise " or "Whales' food" 

 {Clio borealis). 



This singular mollusc may be briefly 

 described as nearly resembling the body of 

 a tadpole, but instead of the tail of the latter, 

 it is provided with a pair of wings like those 

 of a bird, with which it propels itself through 

 the water by a sort of flying motion. The 

 sea is literally blackened in some places by 

 the swarms of these animalculse to such an 

 extent that I have no difliculty in beheving 

 that the huge Mysticetus, with his enormous 

 open mouth and whalebone brushes, may 

 engulph a sufliciency of them to maintain 

 him. I collected a lot of these winged tad- 

 poles, intending to preserve them Id spirits of 

 wine, but somehow that fluid reduced them 

 in a few days to a sort of opaque pulpy mass : 

 while they were waiting in a tumbler for a 

 pickle-bottle to be cleaned and filled with 



