224 THE CIRRHIGRADE ORDER. 



England and Ireland. It is, notwithstanding a some- 

 what grotesque form, a most lovely animal. The float- 

 bladder is nearly egg-shaped, with a sort of snout at 

 one end, and a pointed tail at the other, and crested 

 with a crenate ridge of fine purple. The surface is 

 glassy, and reflects all the colours of the rainbow. From 

 the lower side of this singular organ depend a great 

 number of tubular filaments, of various lengths and 

 shapes; some of them cylindrical, others wavy and 

 tapering to a point, and others resembling fine threads 

 of chenile spirally convoluted; the whole, too, is gay 

 with brilliant changeable tints of green, blue, and gold. 

 These are the organs of prehension, absorption, and di- 

 gestion, in fact of all the animal powers bestowed on the 

 creature, and they are suffered to play freely in the 

 nourishing element. Beautiful as the Physalia is, it is 

 merely a system of entrails floating with the waves. 



The Cirrhigrade Jelly-fishes present us with rather a 

 higher type of structure. In these we have something 

 like a skeleton, surrounded by the soft substance of the 

 body. The Velella, which sails on the surface of the 

 sea, and is brought in such numbers to our western and 

 southern shores in the summer and autumn, furnishes 

 an example of this order. It has an oblong-flattish 

 body, between membranous and fleshy, transparent, but 

 clouded with thickly-set dots of dark blue, and contain- 

 ing within its substance a rectangular, boat-shaped, 

 membranous skeleton, concentrically striate, and fur- 

 nished with a vertical plate, placed diagonally, transpa- 

 rent, and of a horny membranous texture. The internal 

 skeleton is of an exceedingly light and spongy nature, 



