We shall not soon forget the delight with which we
first made acquaintance with this graceful little rover. While
rambling along the shore in quest of marine animals, our attention was
arrested by a drop of the clearest jelly, as it seemed to be, lying on
a mass of rock, from which the tide had but just receded. On
transferring it to a phial of sea-water, its true nature was at once
revealed to us. A globular body floated gracefully in the vessel,
scarcely less transparent than the fluid which filled it. Presently it
began to move up and down within its prison-house, and the paddles by
means of which the beroe dances along its ocean-path were distinctly
visible. These paddles are nothing more or less than cilia of a
peculiar kind, ranged in eight bands upon the surface of the body.
They are set in motion at the will of the animal, and their incessant
strokes propel it swiftly through the water. By stopping some of its
paddles, and keeping others in play, the beroe can change its course
at pleasure, and so wander 'at its own sweet will,' through the
trackless waste.
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