356 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 
cold (for the animal has a cold touch) it seemed as if my arm 
had been plunged up to the shoulder in a caldron of boiling oil, 
so that I screamed with pain.” In his journey round the 
world, Dr. Meyen also relates the case of a sailor who jumped 
overboard to catch a physalia. But scarce had he come within 
reach of its tentacles when the excruciating pain almost de- 
prived him of sensation, and he was with great difficulty hauled 
out of the water. A severe fever was the consequence, and 
his life was for some time despaired of. 
Several of the Physophoride are provided, besides the float, 
with swimming-bells (nectocalyces) and peculiar appendages 
or bracteze (hydrophyllia), which, over- 
lapping the polypites, serve for their 
protection. The graceful <Athorybia 
rosacea possesses from twenty to forty 
of these organs inserted in two or three 
circlets immediately below the pneuma- 
tocyst, and above a much smaller num- 
ber of polypites. 
It has the power of alternately raising 
and depressing them so as to render 
them agents of propulsion. 
The Physophore have no hydrophyllia, 
but their swimming-bells are consider- 
ably developed, and serve as powerful 
instruments of locomotion. They are 
also provided with certain processes 
termed ‘“ hydrocysts,” which some ob- 
servers appear disposed to regard as 
organs of touch. Such are but a few 
of the numerous genera of the Physo 
phoride. 
Of the jelly-fishes in general it may 
be remarked that, though they are 
denizens of the frigid as well as of 
a. Pneumatophore. ». Swimming. tHe temperate and tropical seas, their 
pie, %tntncdes °° beauty increases on advancing towards 
the equator, for while the Medusz in 
our latitudes are generally dull and obscure, those of the torrid 
zone appear in all the splendour of the azure, golden-yellow, or 
Physophora Philippii. 
