A0ALEPH2E. 
241 
s °phora, thus serve the same purpose as the stinging organs disposed 
011 the arms of the Hydra), or on the external surface of the tentacles 
an d prolific polypes of the Vilellse. 
Can there he any animal form more graceful than Agalma rubra, 
' v ^ch is reproduced in Plate VIL from Vogt’s Memoir? This 
beautiful creature is common in the Mediterranean, on the coast near 
^ lce , from November till the month of May. Towards the middle 
December Vogt found nearly fifty individuals in the space of an 
^° Ur , opposite to the Port of Nice, all following the same current ; 
a Prodigious quantity of Salprn, Medusa;, and small Pteropodean 
°Uusks accompanying them. 
I know nothing more graceful,” says Vogt, “than this Agalma as 
floats along near the surface of the waters, its long, transparent, 
8 a rland-like lines extended, and their limits distinctly indicated by 
ladles of a brilliant vermilion red, while the rest of the body is 
concealed by its very transparency ; the entire organism always swims 
Ij 1 a slightly oblique position near the surface, but is capable of steering 
1 Se lf in any direction with great rapidity. I have had in my posses- 
some of these garlands more than three feet in length, in which 
e series of air-bags measured more than four inches, so that in the 
p' ea t vase in which I kept them the column of swimming bags 
^ched the bottom, while the aerial vesicle floated on the surface. 
Mediately after its capture the columns contracted themselves to 
a point that they were scarcely perceptible, but when left to 
re P°se in a spacious vase, sill its shrunken appendages deployed them- 
e - Vea round the vase in the most graceful manner imaginable, the 
u nui of swimming-bladders remaining immovable in their vertical 
tuition, the air-bags at the surface, while the different appendages 
S °° u began to play. The polypes, planted at intervals along the 
®°nunon trunk of rose-colour, began to agitate themselves in all direc- 
taking a thousand odd forms ; the reproductive individuals, like 
6 tentacles, were contracting and twisting themselves about like so 
^any worms ; the tentacles were stirred, the ovarian clusters began to 
i ate and contract, the spermatic air-bells agitated the waters with 
6 * r 'umbrellas, like the Medusae ; but what most excited my curiosity, 
the continuous action of the fishing-lines, which continued to 
* )Ilr °fl and contract in a most surprising manner, retiring altogether 
betimes with the utmost precipitation. All who have witnessed 
