§2 SQUIRTS, POLYPS, AND JELLY-FISHES. 
The delicate tubes which in Tubularia ensheathe 
the elongated body-stalk are in a number of forms 
expanded at their extremities into a cup or bell 
for the reception of the body of the animal itself. 
These are the bell-polyps, or campanularians, which 
grow usually in shrubby clusters, some so small as 
readily to elude observation, others attaining sev- 
eral inches in length. I am not sure that the bell- 
polyp proper (Campanularia) has ever been officially 
reported from our coast, but if not yet noticed it 
will almost surely be found in the near future, and 
it can but afford pleasure to make a sharp search 
after it. Examine the piles, the stones, and the 
sea-weeds, and let not even the grass-covered shells 
escape you. Its near ally, the Obelia commissuralis 
(Pl. 4, Fig. 11), has already secreted itself among 
the time-worn timbers of ancient wrecks, where it 
hangs in bunchy clusters three inches or more in 
length. It is also found attached to stones and 
sea-weeds, giving birth at certain seasons to deli- 
cate free-swimming medusee, which may be recog- 
nized by their sixteen tentacles. 
A second species of Obelia (O. gelatinosa), differ- 
ing from the preceding in its compoundly united 
stems, also finds a favored home among the piles, 
although it is not infrequently found growing from 
the surfaces of oyster-shells. One of the most 
beautiful and abundant of the pile-inhabiting polyps 
or hydroids, especially where the water is in a meas- 
ure brackish, is the Parypha crocea (PI. 4, Fig. 5), 
which ‘forms large clusters of branching stems, 
often six inches or more in height, each of which 
