3a. Janthina.
2. Several of the small shells which resemble belemnites (Creseis) which were first taken on the 14th November 1837. I this day preserved one of these with its swimming apparatus expanded.
3. An animal without a shell, which had a sort of transparent horny covering, and when alarmed and not in motion folded itself up.
4. A tube 3.2 inches in length, perfectly transparent, and swelling out to a little knob at each extremity; but these knobs were of the same colour as the body.
5. Some delicate white shells (Atalanta) or very hard gelatinous animals, 0.2 inches in length, 0.2 wide, and 0.15 thick; they had three ridges of short spines on them, one down each edge, and one ridge running down the centre of the shell or back.
6. Some perfectly spherical transparent bodies, 0.18 inches in diameter; these neither moved nor showed any signs of life when placed in salt water, but another animal, exactly resembling them in shape and colour, with the exception of having some light brown spots on it, unrolled itself like a wood-louse, and then swam nimbly about. They all turned as white as eggs soon after they were put into spirits.
We caught also several species of an animal with two tentaculae, which had been also taken on the 17th June, some of these were very large and beautiful, being of the most delicate amber colour.
Also many different sorts of medusa, particularly tubes of about 0.5 inches in length, with an apparatus shaped like a proboscis at one extremity of it. These I have not attempted to describe. In general the animals we caught this day differed altogether from those we had hitherto found during this voyage. Some few were the same, but the great majority were new.
Many of the medusae and small gelatinous animals must be endowed with very acute sensibilities and perceptions, for they evinced extreme timidity if any substance approached them, and when plunged alive into spirits, their rapid movements and violent contortions repeatedly indicated acute pain; indeed so clearly that on this point there could be no mistake.
A mass of gelatinous animals, caught this day, gave out a slight electric shock. Some of them were shaped like the portions of an orange, and they evidently were formed to fit into one another in the manner in which they were found, although they separated directly they were touched.