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THE DISCOPHORES, OR LARG-E MEDUSAE. 
By the Rey. THOMAS HINCKS, B.A. 
[PLATE LXX.] 
E EW things can be less attractive or suggestive of grace and 
brilliancy than the great lumps of jelly which so often 
strew the beach at certain seasons of the year. Yet these are 
the remains, sorely mangled in the rough collision between sea 
and shore, of some of the loveliest of living things. A jelly- 
fish stranded, soiled by its contact with the sand, mutilated by 
the rush of the angry waters, its crystalline lustre dimmed, its 
vivid colours faded, its rhythmical movement stilled, is an un- 
sightly ruin. Swept in by the advancing tide, with no power of 
resistance, and left an inert mass upon the shore, it is the very 
type of utter helplessness. But the Medusa, floating on the 
surface of a calm, clear sea beneath a summer sky, or gently 
borne onward by the rhythmical pulsations of its swimming- 
bell, its long fringe of slender filaments dependent from the 
margin of its crystal dome, and trailing after it in graceful 
curves, is a model of exquisite form, and suggests nothing but 
happy freedom and the very luxury of motion, as it rises and 
falls in the yielding water. To the other elements of beauty 
which characterise it, vivid and varied colouring must be 
added; the hyaline disc is often adorned with blue, yellow, 
rose, purple, and other tints, while the fringes are also richly 
dyed. 
We are not surprised to find that these beautiful creatures 
engaged the attention of the ancients, and have always excited 
the wonder of naturalists, if they have not always received very 
intelligent treatment at their hands. The singularity of their 
forms, and the profusion in which they occur in all seas, were 
sure to arouse curiosity at least, while the striking peculiarities 
of their structure and mode of life have stimulated and baffled 
the research of the anatomist and physiologist. “ All seas,” 
say MM. Peron and Lesueur, whose names are most honourably 
VOL. X. NO. XXXIX. K 
