phosphorescence to greatest advantage, you must choose a dark night,
when the motion of your boat sets the sea on fire around you, and a long
undulating wave of light rolls off from your oar as you lift it from the
water. On a brilliant evening this effect is lost in a great degree, and
it is not until you dip your net fairly under the moonlit surface of the
sea that you are aware how full of life it is. Occasionally one is
tempted out by the brilliancy of the phosphorescence, when the clouds
are so thick, that water, sky, and land become one indiscriminate mass
of black, and the line of rocks can be discerned only by the vivid flash
of greenish golden light, when the breakers dash against them. At such
times there is something wild and weird in the whole scene, which at
once fascinates and appalls the imagination; one seems to be rocking
above a volcano, for the surface around is intensely black, except
where fitful flashes or broad waves of light break from the water under
the motion of the boat or the stroke of the oars. It was on a night like
this, when the phosphorescence was unusually brilliant, and the sea as
black as ink, the surf breaking heavily and girdling the rocky shore
with a wall of fire, that our collector was so fortunate as to find in
the rich harvest he brought home the entirely new and exceedingly pretty
little floating Hydroid, described under the name of Nanomia. It was in
its very infancy, a mere bubble, not yet possessed of the various
appendages which eventually make up its complex structure; but it was
nevertheless very important to have seen it in this early stage of its
existence, since, when a few full-grown specimens were found in the
autumn, which lived for some days in confinement and quietly allowed
their portraits to be taken, it was easy to connect the adult animal
with its younger phase of life, and thus make a complete history.

Marine phosphorescence is no new topic, and we have dwelt too long,
perhaps, upon a phenomenon that every voyager has seen, and many have
described; but its effect is very different, when seen from the deck of
a vessel, from its appearance as one floats through its midst,
distinguishing the very creatures that produce it; and any account of
the Medusae which did not include this most characteristic feature would
be incomplete.

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER.

In the spring of the year 1853, I observed, as conductor of the weekly
journal, "Household Words