Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 414 pages of information about Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2.

Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 414 pages of information about Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2.

This animal differed from those caught on the 11th November 1837, in the following particulars:  It was much larger.  The base of the animal consisted of two parts.  The centre portion was an elliptically-formed cartilage, elevated in the centre, and marked with eighteen concentric striae, which became thinner and thinner as they approached the centre.  No striae were visible on the elevated crest with which the animal swims, but this crest was furnished or fringed with a thin moveable flap, 0.55 inches in breadth, which ran quite round it.  The animal has the power of flapping this to and fro constantly, as a fish does its tail.

The outer portion of the base was of a pale prussian blue colour, increasing in depth of shade both to the outer and inner edges.  Many minute black spots were dotted all over this.  The underside of the outer base was of a very dark prussian blue colour, and its lower interior edge was furnished with rows of blue tentaculae, which the animal uses as an elephant does its trunk.  The whole interior surface of the oval cartilage is furnished with successive rows of white tentaculae, and in the centre is a long thin white tube, apparently its mouth.

These animals always swim in company.  You see a number together, varying from four or five to twenty or thirty; these are all within a few feet of one another, and you may then pass over several miles and not see any more.

They produce countless numbers of little eggs, of a pale brown colour; these are apparently deposited from the interior white tentaculae, and cannot be estimated they are so numerous.

We also caught a minute fish, 0.6 inches in length; a minute species of nautilus, blue, marked with striae, or grooved, and thus different from what we caught on the 15th; a shrimp-like species of animal 0.5 inches in length; the lower part of a species of Diphyes, which had been caught on the 12th and 13th of November 1837; some minute animals, appearing to be the young of the larger species of Velella which we had taken; they were, like this animal, at first blue, but turned red soon after being put into spirits; also a very minute pale blue species of nautilus, I think the young of the kind we caught on the 15th July.

Caught a number of gelatinous animals, differing however apparently in species from any we had found before.  Some were of the family of crystal-shaped animals with blue spots, so often mentioned in this journal; also several animals of the family figured June 17th, but which differed from them in the colour of their spots.  We caught today a Portuguese man of war (Physalis) of a very different species from those which we had taken in the Indian ocean.  This one had a much larger sac, or float, than the others, and the float was furnished with a crest.

July 15.  South latitude 20 degrees 20 minutes; west longitude 2 degrees 17 minutes.

The same animals mentioned in the last paragraph of July 14th were again caught this day.  A great number of the Velella were also taken.

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Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.