I cannot conclude this brief and imperfect sketch of the Acalephæ without noticing their singular mode of reproduction. Nothing can appear more marvellous than this process when first brought before one's attention. It far excels the wildest dreams of fiction; and were it not so well authenticated by naturalists who have devoted labour and valuable time to gain ocular demonstration of the fact, we might well hesitate to believe the statements laid before us in their works.

For example, a Polype, as Hydra Gelatinosa or Hydra Tuba(found on buoys, oyster shells, &c., long submerged), will, it may be in a simple aquarium, produce a number of small objects which, on being examined through the microscope, are found to be, not young Polypes, but Jelly-fish! In process of time, the latter, by a wondrous law of nature, will produce in their turn, not Medusæ, but Polypes!

'Imagine,' says Mr. Lewes, 'a lily producing a butterfly, and the butterfly in turn producing a lily, and you would scarcely invent a marvel greater than this production of Medusæ was to its first discoverers. Nay, the marvel most go further still, the lily must first produce a whole bed of lilies like its own fair self before giving birth to the butterfly, and this butterfly must separate itself into a crowd of butterflies, before giving birth to the lily.'

Let me now, by entering briefly into detail, endeavour to make the reader acquainted with the leading features of this mysterious subject, known as 'the alternation of generations.'

The adult Medusæ, then, gives birth to a number of oval gemmæ or buds, appropriately so called by most writers, which appear like minute jelly bubbles, covered with numberless vibratile cilia. These organs, ten thousand times more delicate, we may imagine, than the eyelashes of some infant member of fairy land, are ever in constant motion. The currents produced thereby serve to propel the little animal to some stray pebble or stalk of sea-weed, situated at a respectful distance from its gelatinous relative. On some such object the young bud attaches itself, and proceeds to vegetate.

The body gradually lengthens, and becomes enlarged at its upper extremity; from this portion of the animal four arms appear surrounding a kind of mouth. The arms lengthen, and are soon joined by four others. These organs, as also the inner surface of the lips and of the stomach, are covered with cilia, and become highly sensitive. They are used in the same manner as the tentacula of the Actiniæ, namely, for the capture of food. There is this difference, be it observed, between the two animals, that while the infant Medusæ labours incessantly to gain its daily meals, the zoophyte remains still, and trusts to chance for every meal that it enjoys.

Fresh sets of arms continue to be developed successively upon the little jelly fish, until the whole amount in number to twenty-five or thirty. 'And the body, originally about the size of a grain of sand, becomes a line, or the twelfth part of an inch in length.'

Thus far there appears nothing particularly striking or improbable in the history of the Medusæ; the next stage, however, exhibits matter for our 'special wonder.'

The young Acaleph now throws off its animal existence, and sinks into a plant or compound polype.