566 SUPPLEMENT 
appendages of an individual which he had just caught. M. 
Gaéde says positively that he found in the stomach of the 
medusz which he dissected, some small fishes and nereids. 
M. de Chamisso and Eysenhardt, in their memoirs on these 
animals, assure us that they have found several times in the 
ventricles some heads and remnants of fish, as it were di- 
gested. Several other naturalists, who have had copious op- 
portunities of observation, aver the same thing; and M. de 
Blainville has found some small fishes in the equorea, and 
even in the rhizostoma. But he queries whether these little 
animals were seized by the medusz for the purpose of nourish- 
ment, or that they came there accidentally. The last opinion 
is that of M. Cuvier, at least regarding the rhizostoma, which 
appear to him to derive their nourishment through species of 
suckers, as we have already stated. 
We have been hitherto in ignorance, and, probably, shall 
long remain so, concerning the duration of life in the meduse, 
as well as the history of their development. It is probable 
that they are rejected by the mother in a perfect state, and 
differ from her only in size. It is known that they are larger 
in spring and summer, that is, at the time when their ovaries 
are distended by the eggs which they contain, and that in 
the other part of the year they are smaller. It is also known, 
that the appendages acquire with age a development and a 
complication, which they did not at first possess. 
We find some species of these animals in all the seas of 
cold climates, as well as in those of warm, and more especially 
far out at sea. Each, according to the observations of MM. 
Peron and Lesueur, appears to be confined to determinate 
portions of the globe, where the individuals are united in in- 
numerable troops, and sometimes-form many square leagues 
in extent. If they appear and disappear sometimes at deter- 
mined periods, that, doubtless, depends upon the regular 
winds and currents which carry them away and bring them 
