Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/128

Rh May, I found the Sarsia even more abundant around the boulders at the Nothe Point. They were accumulated by hundreds if not thousands, shooting hither and thither near the surface of the clear water, in the narrow interstices of the rocks, and in the little inlets, borne in by the incoming flood-tide.

The size, the perfect transparency, the elegant form, and the extraordinary vivacity of this species render it one of the most interesting of the Medusæ, for keeping in a glass vessel of sea-water. Its shape is that of an ellipse, of which about a third has been cut off at one end; a tall bell of the purest crystal, a little narrowed at the mouth. At four equidistant points on the margin of this bell are placed as many knobs, within each of which is a bright red speck, and from every one of the knobs depends a tentacle resembling a slender thread. Often these threads are shrivelled up till they are not more than a quarter of an inch long; more commonly they are about an inch and a half in length, but occasionally, when the Sarsia rests motionless in the water, a little turned over on one side, its tentacles are allowed to hang down in the deep to a great length; five inches I have seen them extended, as measured by a rule placed against the side of the glass. When thus stretched they appear like a thread of excessive tenuity, but if you look very closely you may see even with the naked eye that it is not a simple thread, but rather a string of the most minute white beads, which when placed under the microscope are discovered to be a series of thickened knobs, arranged in an imperfect spiral round the central filament.