ect is that of a bed of rose-coloured flowers. From the
heads hang grape-like masses, which on examination in a tumbler are seen
to be immature medusae. Each of these develop to the point where the four
radiating canals are discernible and then their growth comes to a
standstill, and they never attain the freedom for which their structure
fits them.

When the wind blew inshore, I would often find the water fairly alive with
large sun-jellies or _Aurelia_,--their Latin name. Their great milky-white
bodies would come heaving along and bump against me, giving a very
"crawly" sensation. The circle of short tentacles and the four
horse-shoe-shaped ovaries distinguish this jelly-fish from all others.
When I had gone down as far as I dared, I would sometimes catch glimpses
of these strange beings far below me, passing and repassing in the silence
and icy coldness of the watery depths. These large medusae are often very
abundant after a favourable wind has blown for a few days, and I have
rowed through masses of them so thick that it seemed like rowing through
thick jelly, two or three feet deep. In an area the length of the boat and
about a yard wide, I have counted over one hundred and fifty _Aurelias_ on
the surface alone.

When one of these "sunfish," as the fishermen call them, is lifted from
the water, the clay-coloured eggs may be seen to stream from it in
myriads. In many jellies, small bodies the size of a pea are visible in
the interior of the mass, and when extracted they prove to be a species of
small shrimp. These are well adapted for their quasi-parasitic life, in
colour being throughout of the same milky semi-opaqueness as their host,
but one very curious thing about them is, that when taken out and placed
in some water in a vial or tumbler they begin to turn darker almost
immediately, and in five minutes all will be of various shades, from red
to a dark brown.

I had no fear of _Aurelia_, but when another free-swimming species of
jelly-fish, _Cyanea_, or the blue-jelly, appeared, I swam ashore with all
speed. This great jelly is usually more of a reddish liver-colour than a
purple, and is much to be dreaded. Its tentacles are of enormous length. I
have seen specimens which measured two feet across the disc, with
streamers fully forty feet long, and one has been recorded seven feet
across and no less than one hundred and twelve feet to the tip of the
cruel tentacles! These trail behind in eight bunches and form