EARLY RESEARCHES n 



first to last in Sydney afforded abundant opportunity for 

 intimate mutual knowledge. 



Apart from a short visit made to Bass's Strait, the 

 Rattlesnake made three northern cruises, surveying the 

 inshore Passage (between Australia and the Great Barrier 

 Reef), and thence exploring Torres Straits, the Louisiade 

 Archipelago and S.E. New Guinea. A westward ex- 

 tension of this work in the direction of Java and Sumatra 

 was prevented by the premature death of the commander, 

 Captain Owen Stanley. The ship finally left Australia 

 for England in May, 1850, returning by way of the Falk- 

 lands and Azores to Plymouth, and arriving at Chatham 

 on November 9, of the same year. 



In a letter to Sir John Richardson, dated October 3 1 , 

 1850, Huxley summarizes his Rattlesnake work (Life, i, 

 pp. 57-8), and the information there given is supple- 

 mented by his paper, " Zoological Notes and Observa- 

 tions made on board H.M.S. Rattlesnake during the years 

 1846-50" (Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 2, vii, 1851, 

 pp. 304-6, and viii, 1851, pp. 433-42. Sci. Mem., i, ix, 

 p. 80). Apart from the paper on Trigonia and the re- 

 searches on Medusae already mentioned, they include the 

 following, of which the three first are embodied in the 

 " Notes " just mentioned. 



I. " Upon Thalassicola," an undescribed type of the 

 Protozoa or simple unicellular animals, most of which 

 are microscopic. In the middle of last century zoo- 

 logical classification was dominated by the views of 

 Cuvier, who had established several large groups or sub- 

 kingdoms, of which one was known as the " Radiata." 

 This included a vast assemblage of heterogeneous forms, 

 among which were Medusae and their allies,. Echinoderms 

 (star-fishes, etc.), Entozoa (parasitic worms), Ascidians 

 (sea-squirts), Bxyozoa (moss-polypes), and the above-named 



