VOYAGE FROM INDIA TO SI AM AND MALACCA. 89 



not half as long*. I counted eight pairs of the long- ten- 

 tacles, the shorter ones standing opposite. I found at the side of 

 a membrane like a cover of the helmet. The base of the tentacles 

 in pairs is knotted and they have hair at their ends and no 

 claws. 



Besides these there were still different kinds of Molluscs 

 swimming here ; one of them is cylindrical, as long as a finger 

 and quite as thick ; its surface was quite covered with lumps or 

 short thick points. Its ends were round and full of these pro- 

 truding points like the rest of the surface of the body. It con- 

 sisted of many Tras put together, had rhomboidal scales, which 

 at the upper edge were thinly indented and at the lower edge 

 deeper cut; they were all connected by means of a thread- 

 like gut or canal ; this was shortly protruding, thicker, and was 

 smooth and half round ; it bore very fine stripes of dark purplish 

 red colour on a white ground. Usually their bodies were 

 divided towards the middle by a partition, the hinder half 

 being a little thinner. Between the scales of the front part, there 

 were many oblong purplish spots near this gut ; these were flat, 

 rolled together in spirals, were very thin and looked like flat 

 threads. Whether these were their eggs or whether they were 

 continuations of the big tubes I could not discover ; they 

 were however all separated one from the other. In the 

 back part the tube ended without protruding in the least. 

 These mollusks were extremely fragile. One could hardly take 

 them into one's hand when the separate scales fell asunder, and 

 they were all as clear and transparent as the best crystal. One 

 could only discover this animal through the oblong spots and 

 of the gut. In some of the scales 1 saw a sort of opening in 

 which there was some movement discernible like the beating of 

 a pulse. 



I found a peculiar kind of Medusa, but I could not examine 

 it with great care. 



Another kind of moUusk was often swimmings past the ship. 

 I saw this mollusk sometimes as long as a foot and more than an 

 inch wide ; it consisted of a jelly which was of almost equal width 

 except at the ends, where it was not as wide and oblique. It was 

 transparent and white, lined with a beautiful rose pink at the 

 edges; in the middle this edge had a slit on one side, in which 

 one could detect some specially organised parts, as tentacula. 



