THE VENOMOUS CYAN^A. 565 



of the footstalk. There it remained for about sixty hours, when it was rejected. On being 

 examined, it was found to be perfectly white, but not in the least decomposed or having any 

 putrescent smell. 



A curious change then took place. "After I had kept this Chrysaora for about a week, 

 its manners underwent a change. It no longer swam about freely in the water by means of its 

 pumping contractions, nor was its appearance that of an umbrella. It began to turn itself 

 inside out, and at length assumed this form permanently, its shape being that of an elegant 

 vase or cup, with the rim turned over, and the tentacles depending loosely from it, the furbe- 

 lows constituting a sort of foot. 



"The latter were now put to a new use; the animal began habitually to rest near the 

 bottom of the vessel, or upon the broad fronds of the Iridaa, which were growing in the 

 water and preserving its purity, but occasionally it would rise midway to the surface and 

 hang by one or two of the furbelows. A fold or two of the latter would come to the top of 

 the water, and dilate upon the surface into a broad flat expansion, exactly like the foot of a 

 swimming mollusk ; from this the Medusa would hang suspended in an inverted position. 

 All the other furbelows, and portions of this one that lay below the expansion, floated as 

 usual through the water, except that on some occasions an accessory power was obtained by 

 pressing a portion of another furbelow to the side of the glass and making it adhere just like 

 the portion that was exposed to the surface of the air. The texture of the furbelows when 

 thus stretched smooth was exquisitely delicate." This curious movement seemed to be a 

 prelude to the production of eggs, which were seen in great numbers. As if its whole life 

 powers were exhausted by this process, the creature soon became feeble and then died, its cap- 

 tive life having endured for almost three weeks. 



An example of the typical genus of the Medusee is the Medusa aurita. This is a sufficiently 

 common species, and may be found plentifully on northern European shores, together with its 

 kindred. There are few more beautiful sights than to stand on a pier head or lie in the stern 

 sheets of a boat, and watch the Medusae passing in shoals through the clear water, pulsating 

 as if the whole being were but a translucent heart, trailing behind them their delicate fringes 

 of waving cilia, and rolling gently over as if in excess of happiness. At night, the Medusae 

 put on new beauties, glowing with phosphorescent light like marine fire-flies, and giving to the 

 ocean an almost unearthly beauty that irresistibly recalls to the mind the " sea of glass mingled 

 with fire." 



That scourge of the ocean, the VENOMOUS CYAN^A, though a harmless-looking creature, is, 

 in truth, one of the few inhabitants of the sea that are to be feared by bathers on our favored 

 shores ; but its presence is so much to be dreaded that no one who has once suffered from the 

 lash of its envenomed filaments will venture to bathe without keeping a careful watch on the 

 surrounding water. I have twice undergone the torment occasioned by the contact of this 

 creature, and know by experience the severity of its stroke. 



At its first infliction, the pain is not unlike that caused by the common stinging-nettle, 

 but rather sharper, and with more of a tingling sensation. Presently, however, it increases in 

 violence, and then seems to attack the whole nervous system, occasionally causing a severe 

 pain to dart through the body as if a rifle-bullet had passed in at one side and out at the 

 other. Both the heart and lungs suffer spasmodically, and the victim occasionally feels as if 

 he could not survive for another minute. 



These symptoms last for ten or twelve hours before they fairly abate, and even after 

 several days the very contact of the clothes is painful to the skin. The shooting pangs just 

 mentioned are of longer duration, and I have felt them more than three months after the 

 Cyansea had stung me. 



To the unaided eye the filaments which work such dread misery are most innocuous and 

 feeble, being scarcely stronger than the gossamer floating in the air, and looking much as if 

 the Medusa had broken away a spider's web, and were trailing the long threads behind it. 

 The microscope, however, reveals a wondrous structure, which, though it cannot precisely 

 compensate for the sufferings inflicted by these tentacles, can at all events endow them with 

 an interest which would not otherwise be felt. 



