s of a line, and its length has
sometimes reached to ten or twelve feet. Small specimens have been found
beneath the tunica conjunctiva of the eye; and one species of the same
genus of _Nematoidea_ infests the cavity of the eye itself.[1]

[Footnote 1: OWEN'S _Lectures on the Invertebrata_, p. 96.]

_Planaria_.--In the journal already mentioned, Dr. Kelaart has given
descriptions of fifteen species of planaria, and four of a new genus,
instituted by him for the reception of those differing from the normal
kinds by some peculiarities which they exhibit in common. At Point
Pedro, Mr. Edgar Layard met with one on the bark of trees, after heavy
rain, which would appear to belong to the subgenus _geoplana_.[1]

[Footnote 1: "A curious species, which is of a light brown above, white
underneath; very broad and thin, and has a peculiarly shaped tail,
half-moon-shaped in fact, like a grocer's cheese knife."]

_Acalephae_.--Acalephae[1] are plentiful, so much so, indeed, that they
occasionally tempt the larger cetacea into the Gulf of Manaar. In the
calmer months of the year, when the sea is glassy, and for hours
together undisturbed by a ripple, the minute descriptions are rendered
perceptible by their beautiful prismatic tinting. So great is their
transparency that they are only to be distinguished from the water by
the return to the eye of the reflected light that glances from their
delicate and polished surfaces. Less frequently they are traced by the
faint hues of their tiny peduncles, arms, or tentaculae; and it has been
well observed that they often give the seas in which they abound the
appearance of being crowded with flakes of half-melted snow. The larger
kinds, when undisturbed in their native haunts, attain to considerable
size. A faintly blue medusa, nearly a foot across, may be seen in the
Gulf of Manaar, where, no doubt, others of still larger growth are to be
found.

[Footnote 1: Jelly-fish.]

[Illustration: PHYSALUS URTICULUS.]

Occasionally after storms, the beach at Colombo is strewn with the thin
transparent globes of the "Portuguese Man of War," _Physalus urticulus_,
which are piled upon the lines left by the waves, like globules of glass
delicately tinted with purple and blue. They sting, as their trivial
name indicates, like a nettle when incautiously touched.

_Red infusoria_.--On both sides of the island (but most frequently on
the west), during the south-west monsoon, a broad expanse of the sea