Annals & Magazine of Natural History (Volume 19) (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1847. Excerpt: ... XLIII.--Notices of new or rare British Animals observed during Cruises in 1845 and 1846. By Robert M'andrew, Esq., and Professor Edward Forbes. Continued from p. 98.] With a Plate.] II. On the occurrence of a species o/Pelagia in the British seas. On the 23rd of August 1846, when cruising off Mount's Bay, Cornwall, our attention was attracted by some rather large Medusa? which passed the vessel at intervals. The weather was fine and the sea smooth; the Medusre in question appeared like rose-coloured globes in the water. On capturing some we found they belonged to a species of the genus Pelagia, hitherto unnoticed in the British seas. The following description was drawn up from the living animal (which is figured in Plate IX. fig. 5): -- Disc 2j inches in diameter; subglobose, slightly depressed above, hyaline and tinged with pink, covered with small reddish orange warts which become obsolete towards the summit; margin with sixteen lobes, each bilobed: each lobule rounded and having a triangularly-lanceolate centre covered with reddish brown warts, which are also seen on the sides of the lobules, but are there not coloured. From beneath the separations of eight of the greater lobes spring as many tentacula: in the notches of the remaining eight are the ocelli. Ocelli composed each of an ovate red body (formed of pigment cells and prismatic crystals) suspended by a peduncle from a translucent (ganglionic ?) mass, whence radiate fibres (nerves ?), and behind which (connected by a nerve ?) is a circular cavity containing an otolitic body in continual revolution. Tentacula pink, simple, hollow, short when contracted and nearly equal throughout, but capable of extreme extension (even to the length of several feet); they consist of an external epidermic series of large pigment cells, form...