26^ Queries and Answers. 



The Portuguese Man-of-War. (p. 96.) — This apjxjUation is usually 

 given to the Velella limbosa, a figure of which may be seen in Shaw's 

 Katuralisfs Miscellany ; and though the vague description of the animal 

 referred to by your correspondent (R. S.) should seem to agree with this 

 zoophyte in many particulars, yet the tubes of twenty feet to an animal of 

 six or eight inches must be either a mistake or a newly discovered marvel. 

 At all events, this mention of the name has recalled to memory my having 

 detected this Velella on the shores of England. In the summer, or rather 

 in the autumn, of 1817, I found it at Ilfracombe, in Devonshire, thrown up 

 by the waves after windy weather, sticking to the rocks, and on the beach. 

 Some of the specimens were alive, retaining their brilliant blue colour, 

 and others were dead, transparent, and without the delicately filamentous 

 tentacula beneath them. The specimens were presented to Dr. Leach, 

 of the British Museum, by whom they were placed in the room appropriated 

 to British zoology, and where I have since seen them in a bottle of spirits, 

 labelled as above mentioned. I am not aware that any previous memoran- 

 dum has ever been made of their having been found on the British coast, 

 though it was certainly Dr. Leach's intention at the time to make the fact 

 known. — J. S. Hemlow. Cambridgey Feb. 4. 1831. 



. The Portuguese Man-of-War. (p. 96.) — Sir, I had an opportunity of 

 examining one, in a voyage from the West Indies, about a year and a half 

 ago, and I now send my observations on it. This animal I take to be one 

 of the Mollusca, the ^olothuria Physalis of Lin. The individual I ex- 

 amined was scarcely 6 in, long, of a delicate pink on the upper part (the 

 top of the crest being darkest), and shading off' into an azure blue ; the cirri 

 were none of them longer than 3 ft. ; but the animal was in a bucket, and, 

 as it has the power of contracting them, it may have reduced them to this 

 length to accommodate them to the shallowness of the vessel. The fact 

 of these Mollusca being able to descend at will, I doubt ; for though I never 

 remember to have seen them in a gale, yet in a tolerable breeze, when we 

 have been going at 7 or 8 knots an hour, I have seen them rather abundant, 

 but still not so much so as in a calm. My reasons for doubting their having 

 this power are these : — When they are blown over, which frequently hap- 

 pens, they lie on the top of the water till they are able to right themselves ; 

 which, from experiments I made on the one caught, appears to be by an 

 exercise of muscular power, and not by the mass of cirri acting as ballast ; 

 on the lower part or keel of th,is little ship muscular fibres are very evi- 

 dent. When a bucket is thrown over to try to take them up, though 

 they may be upset by the shock and splash of the water, they never sink ; 

 which, as all animals have an instinctive dread of danger, we may suppose 

 they would do if able. Besides, with a knife I opened the crest of mine, 

 and, notwithstanding the air escaped, the animal still floated, its weight not 

 being sufficient to sink it ; though, from the motion of the cirri, it was still 

 alive, and, therefore, had the power of sinking, if it ever possessed it, as 

 much as before. The cirri are, no doubt, intended for securing prey. As 

 a proof of this, a small fish, about an inch long, was put in with the jH^oIo- 

 thuria ; and, when it came within the influence of the cirri, it was seized 

 and carried among the mass situated close to the body of the animal. It 

 remained there some time, and, when expelled, it was quite dead and 

 squeezed flat ,* so that the animal appears to live by suction, and not (like 

 the Actiniae) by passing the solids into its stomach. The sting of the cirri 

 is like that of nettles, both in feel and appearance, but I do not think so 

 severe as it is generally reported ; for, to ascertain the fact of its stinging at 

 all, which I had very much doubted, I took it up in the palm of my hand, 

 and felt no inconvenience ; a part, however, clung to the back of my hand, 

 and occasioned the sensation I have mentioned. Another person tried it, and 

 the palm of his hand was not stung, but the tender skin of his arm was. The 

 ■^poison, therefore, appears not strong enough to penetrate the hardened 



