Cn. XXI.] INFLUX OF STEPHANOMIAS. 359 



shrimps, little violet crabs, Physaliee with violet blue threads, 

 beautiful crystaUine Crustacea, almost transparent, but 

 tinged with violet. Small as these objects were, they would 

 have escaped observation except for the towiag net ; but had 

 they been larger, their colour so assimilated with that of the 

 sea, that they would have been equally invisible from the 

 ship. 



In the Indian Ocean from Anjer to Natal, in April and 

 May, although constantly on the watch I never saw a 

 single floating object. This certainly appears strange, but, 

 as before observed, the combiuation of apparently favorable 

 conditions by no means always results in great numbers of 

 floating animals. The reverse of this was curiously illus- 

 trated on one occasion when lying in the spacious harbour 

 of Kelung in North Formosa, and although I have detailed 

 the circumstance already, I must allude to it again here. 

 The weather on this occasion was wet and boisterous, but 

 nevertheless myriads of Creseis swarmed in the harbour, 

 filling every mesh of the towing net, and giving the water a 

 rippling movement and twinkling aspect, from the millions 

 of little pairs of fins in constant motion. As the rollers 

 came in from the north-east, great quantities of curiously- 

 carved gelatinous Stephanomiadse floated by, and as the 

 afternoon advanced, and the rain increased, so also did these 

 singular organisms augment in numbers, spite of the adverse 

 circumstances which accompanied them. It was one of the 

 very few days on which the sea might be said to be alive with 

 curious animals ; notwithstanding that there existed at the 

 same time a combination of circumstances under which one 

 would least expect to see such a phenomenon. 



It becomes a curious question, whither go all these pelagic 

 animals, whose home is the wide ocean, when they are not 



