CHAPTER II. 



SUMMER DELIGHTS-MEDUS^-HUNTING-NOCTILUCA ANL THE PHOS- 

 PHORESCENCE OF THE SEA-THE CYDIPPE -VIVISECTIONS-DO THE 

 LOWER ANIMALS FEEL PAIN ?-CHANCE-WEED-A NEW POLYPE- 

 A NEW POLYZOON- VITALITY OF MOLLUSCS - VISION OF THE 

 MOLLUSCS-ARE IMAGES FORMED ON THE RETINA ?-DESCRIPTION 

 OF THE RETINA IN VERTEBRATES AND INVERTEBRATES - NEW 

 THEORY OF VISION-TACTILE SENSATIONS AND NERVE FILAMENTS 

 -CAN THE MOLLUSCS HEAR? -THE SENSES OF ANIMALS NOT 

 SUPERIOR TO THOSE OP MAN-THE OCEAN-CURRENTS CAUSED BY 

 MOLLUSCS. 



There are perspiring individuals who love not summer 

 in its sultry splendour. With bubbles on their upper 

 lips, they languidly declare the heat is insupportable. 

 It is not often that our English summers swelter with 

 intolerable heat ; and when the blazing sun does pour 

 fierce radiance on the land, who have true right to 

 murmur? Only those unhappy victims of civilisation 

 doomed to move along stifling streets, with souls 

 yearnmg for the far-off" woodlands, and the breezy 

 seaboards ; or those victims of agricultural necessities 

 who toil amid the shadeless corn. Nobody else. The 

 heat is hot, undoubtedly ; but it is beneficent. Nature 

 ripens ; life culminates ; let no one murmur. I am in 

 a permanent vapour-bath while writing this, yet the 

 temporary discomfort cannot quell my invincible de- 



