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Various species of the holothuria, especially the 

 holothuria physalis^ or the galley, are frequently found 

 upon the shore, whither they are driven by the waves. 

 This mollusca, called by several authors the sea net- 

 tle, from its producing an inflammation of the skin 

 when touched, is of the shape and size of an ox- blad- 

 der filled with air. It is furnished within with a 

 great number of branching feelers, or tentaculae, in- 

 tertwined with each other, in the centre of which is 

 placed the mouth, of a very deformed appearance. 



These tentaculas are of several colours, red, pur- 

 ple or blue ; the skin that forms the vesicle or blad- 

 der is transparent, and appears to consist of different 

 longitudinal and transverse fibres, within which a 

 peristaltic motion is perceptible. The top of this 

 bladder is ornamented with a membrane in the shape 

 of a crest, which serves the animal as a sail, and con- 

 tains nothing excepting a little clear water, confined 

 to one of its extremities by a membrane or dia- 

 phragm, which prevents it from spreading through- 

 out the whole cavity of the bladder. 



Besides the common cuttle fish (sepia octopodia) 

 three other singular species are found in the sea of 

 Chili. The first, the ungulated cuttle fish (sepia un- 

 g uiculata) is of a great size, and instead of suckers, 

 has paws armed with a double row of pointed nails, 

 like those of a cat, which it can, at its pleasure, draw 

 into a kind of sheath. This fish is of a delicate taste, 

 but is not very common. The second I have cal- 

 led the.tunicated cuttlefish (sepia tunicata) from its 

 body being covered with a second skin, in the fornqi 

 of a tunic ; this is transparent^ and terminates in two 



