with which some of them are endowed. The commoner forms are well
known, for the beach is often strewn with the carcasses of the larger
species. On fine days in summer and autumn, whole fleets of these
strange voyagers appear off our coasts. Their umbrella-shaped,
transparent disks float gracefully through the calm water, and their
long fishing-lines trail after them as they move onward. At times,
multitudes, almost invisible to the naked eye, tenant every wave, and
give it by night a crest of flame; while other kinds measure as much
as a yard in diameter. The _Acalephæ_ present the greatest variety of
form and colour, as well as of size, but they are all of the most
delicate structure, frail, gelatinous, transparent. Some are so
perfectly colourless, that their presence can with difficulty be
detected in the water.

The following description, by Professor E. Forbes, applies to a large
proportion of the species:--'They are active in their habits, graceful
in their motions, gay in their colouring, delicate as the finest
membrane, transparent as the purest crystal.' The poet Crabbe has
characterised them well in the following passage:--

'Those living jellies which the flesh inflame,
Fierce as a nettle, and from that the name;
Some in huge masses, some that you might bring
In the small compass of a lady's ring;
Figured by hand divine--there's not a gem
Wrought by man's art to be compared to them;
Soft, brilliant, tender, through the wave they glow,
And make the moonbeam brighter where they flow.'

The first thing that arrests our attention in these creatures is the