Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2Grey, George
History
Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2
Grey, George
Natural history -- Australia -- Western Australia; Western Australia -- Discovery and exploration
The sea was, this morning, covered in places with fleets of the Velella
of Lamarck; also with great numbers of the species of Janthina which I
described yesterday; to both of these kinds of animals large clusters of
barnacles were frequently attached. These barnacles preyed on the
different gelatinous animals which were swimming about. It was curious to
see them seize on these with their hooked tentaculae and draw them in,
whilst the acalepha, or gelatinous animal, contracted and dilated itself
with all its might and main, endeavouring to escape. We saw two or three
times very large shoals of porpoises ahead of us, and when we reached the
spot where they had been we found the sea quite cleared of the animals
with which it was covered in other places, so that we imagined the
porpoises must have been feeding on them. We saw also a whale and a shark
today.
Although these little floating animals were so numerous there were but
very few of the gelatinous species to be seen, and they were chiefly of
the larger sorts. I saw one of the species (Glaucus) of which I have
given a sketch, on the 17th of June. Like all the animals of this species
which we caught to the westward of the Cape it had a red intestinal spot
in it; but excepting in its great size it differed in no respect from the
others which I had seen: this one was at least a foot in length.
A number of black minute animals were caught, which, at a rapid glance,
looked not unlike fleas with long feelers or antennae.
We caught also this day an animal (Salpa) which consisted of a gelatinous
transparent bag, having an orifice provided with a valve that opened and
closed the orifice at pleasure; there was no other opening to the sac
that I could discover; I passed the end of a pencil down it, but although
it passed readily through the valve it could not at first pass through
the bottom of the gelatinous sac; but I afterwards found that this was an
error, and that the pencil could be passed right through the body of the
animal, which was provided with a valve at each end. I found also that
the united animals had the power of swimming with either end foremost.
There was an intestinal tube in the animal of a dark reddish brown
colour. This animal appeared to exist very badly alone, fourteen of them
were always found united together by a plane; they then formed a mass
shaped like half an orange and having a cup at its upper surface; the
intestinal canals, when they are in this position, are all brought near
to one another, and the whole mass looks not unlike a flower; they are
united to one another by so thick a fluid that it is very difficult to
separate them. If one or more are torn away from the mass the outside
ones immediately join together and form a united mass again, of the
original shape. They open the orifices at different times: that is, two
or three open theirs at the moment that some of the others are closing,
so that no regular or simultaneous movement takes place between the
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