species met with by me, see Contributions to Ornithology by Sir W.
Jardine, Bart. page 94.)

PELAGIC ANIMALS.

On several occasions the towing net* produced a rich harvest, especially
one day when almost becalmed in latitude 34 degrees 40 minutes South and
longitude 4 degrees West. The surface of the water was absolutely teeming
with marine animals. Of these a small Physalia and a Velella (V.
emarginata ?) were the most plentiful. The latter curious animal,
consists of a flat oval expansion, an inch and a half in length,
furnished below with numerous cirrhi and a proboscidiform mouth, and
above with an obliquely vertical crest, the whole of a rich blue colour
with white lines and dots, the soft parts conceal a transparent
cartilaginous framework. The crest acts as a tiny sail (hence the name)
and communicates to the animal a slow rotatory movement while drifting
before the wind. Two kinds of Janthinae (J. globosa and J. exigua)
molluscs with a fragile, snail-like shell, and a vesicular float, were
drifting about, and, together with a very active, silvery-blue Idotea,
half an inch long, prayed upon the Velellae. At another time, among many
other pelagic crustacea, we obtained three kinds of Erichthus, a genus
remarkable for the glassy transparency of its species, also Hyalaea
inflexa and H. tridentata, curious pteropodous molluscs which swim near
the surface.

(*Footnote. Not having seen a description of this useful instrument, I
may mention that the kind used by Mr. Huxley and myself, consisted of a
bag of bunting (used for flags) two feet deep, the mouth of which is sewn
round a wooden hoop fourteen inches in diameter; three pieces of cord, a
foot and a half long, are secured to the hoop at equal intervals and have