1 82 Dwellers of the Sea and Shore 



Imply that there exists a scarcity of these forms. They 

 are, on the contrary, very numerous. Their usual 

 haunts, however, are the more open spaces of the sea. 

 Southern and tropical waters, particularly, are prolific 

 of these wandering creatures. Once In a while some of 

 these warm-water dwellers drift to these northern lati- 

 tudes with the Gulf Stream, eventually finding their 

 way to this shore. Of these floating wanderers, one 

 form Is especially worthy of our attention here, because 

 of all the free-swImmIng hydrolds It Is the most beau- 

 tiful and the most famous — and the most dangerous. 



PhysaUa arethusa, or Portuguese man-of-war, as this 

 notorious coelenterate Is called, floats on the surface of 

 the water — a resplendent, fairy craft of faint purple 

 and rose. The hull, or body, of this marvelous ship is 

 a bubblelike bag about five inches long roughly resem- 

 bling a dirigible balloon; and it carries a crest, or sail, 

 that can be raised or lowered before the wind. The 

 bag Is filled with air, and from beneath trails a cluster 

 of brilliant blue streamers which sometimes are nearly 

 one hundred feet in length. In addition, there depends 

 a mass of flask-shaped bodies, or feeding zooids, and 

 some that look like miniature bunches of grapes, the 

 reproductive zooids. 



The attractive tentacles of Physalla, as In the case of 

 the large jellyfishes, are covered with stinging cells; but 

 in this instance they are more poisonous and para- 

 lyzing. A strange thing — Is It not? — that such an ex- 

 quisite creature should possess so terrible a power. No 

 fish of ordinary size can escape when coming In contact 

 with this alluring snare. In its deceptive mazes sea 

 turtles weighing twenty pounds or more are, in spite 



