The Medusæ

Abstract

THIS is one of the most beautiful books which the science of zoology, which is rich in beautiful books, can boast of. The Medusæ are the most graceful, delicate, exquisitely formed and withal the most rare and inaccessible of living things. No inlander has any notion of what these tender, translucent beings can show in the way of colour, symmetry, and rhythmic movement. They cannot be carried to distant aquaria—but live only in the clearest, brightest parts of the sea at some distance from the coast. No system of pickling fluids is known which can keep them for us undistorted. To study them, even to see them at all as they are, the naturalist must betake himself to the coast and in calm weather sweep the surface of the sea with his towing-net, much as the insect-man sweeps the hedge-rows. Many and some very lovely forms occur on our own coast—but our capricious climate renders it always uncertain when or where any of the Medusæ may be found, sensitive as they are to every change in the movement of the waters, and sinking far out of reach in certain states of weather. The Mediterranean, with its more genial atmosphere and sheltered bays, has always furnished naturalists with the richest supply of pelagic animals, whilst even the mid-ocean is more favourable as a hunting-ground for them than our ever-restless Channel and North Sea.

Das System der Medusen; erster Theil einer Monographie der Medusen.

Von Dr. Ernst Haeckel, Professor an der Universität Jena. (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1879.)