72 



From Corunna to the 36th degree of latitude 

 we had scarcely seen any organic being, except- 

 ing sea-swallows, and a few dolphins. We looked 

 in vain for sea weeds (fucus) and molluscas, 

 when on the 11th of June we were struck with 

 a curious sight, which afterwards was frequently 

 renewed in the southern ocean. We entered on 

 a zone where the whole sea was covered with a 

 prodigious quantity of medusas. The vessel was 

 almost becalmed, but the molluscas were borne 

 towards the south-east, with a rapidity four times 

 that of the current. Their passage lasted near 

 three quarters of an hour. We then perceived 

 but a few scattered individuals, following the 

 crowd at a distance as if they were tired with 

 their journey. Do these animals come from the 

 bottom of the sea, which is perhaps in these lati- 

 tudes some thousand fathoms deep? or do they 

 make distant voyages in shoals ? We know that 

 the molluscas haunt banks ; and if the eight 

 rocks, near the surface, which Captain Vobonne 

 asserts having seen in 1732, to the north of Por- 

 to Santo, really exist, we may suppose that this 

 innumerable quantity of medusas had been 

 thence detached ; for we were but 28 leagues 

 from this reef. We found, beside the medusa 

 aurita of Baster, and the medusa pelagica of 

 Bosc with eight tentacula (pelagia denticulata, 

 Peron), a third species which resembles the me- 

 dusa hysocella, and which Vandelli found at the 



