30 BEAUTIFUL, BUT TREACHEROUS. 



said, however, that some of the smaller kinds have been observed 

 to shun a bright light, and to sink into deep water to avoid it ; 

 and our own schoolboy experience assures us that they are quite 

 capable of " dodging " the hand that attempts to grasp them in 

 the water. 



l In all the more typical forms of Jelly-fish, the body is more or 

 less hemispherical in shape, with the margin in some species 

 simple, in others beautifully scolloped ; while in many cases the 

 animals are furnished with numerous long filaments, tubular 

 tentacula or suckers, and a pedicle or proboscis, depending from 

 the under surface. The stomach, in the form of a simple cavity, 

 usually occupies the centre of the body, and has a small aperture 

 immediately below, answering the purpose of a mouth. " In some 

 species, however, the stomach occupies the thickest part of the 

 pedicle ; and, instead of a mouth, the creatures are provided with 

 suckers, having minute orifices at their extremities, through 

 which they imbibe their nutriment, as plants do by means of 

 their roots. Stranger still, there are some of these animals in 

 which neither mouth nor stomach can be detected, the invisible 

 food being absorbed by the countless pores with which the body 

 itself is perforated, and in some mysterious manner, appropriated, 

 it would seem, by all parts of the structure alike, 



Any one unacquainted with the habits of the Jelly-fish would 

 be apt to form a very erroneous idea of their real character and 

 disposition. Possessed of such a singularly delicate and beautiful 

 frame, we should be disposed to credit them with all that is inno- 

 cent and amiable, whereas they are in reality distinguished by 

 qualities of a totally opposite character. Frail and lifeless as 

 they seem when cast upon the shore, in their own proper element 

 the Jelly-fish are powerful and destructive, and, in proportion to 

 their size, may fairly be ranked amongst the most rapacious 

 inhabitants of the ocean. By far the larger number of them 

 subsist on living prey, and many of them upon animals far more 

 highly organized than themselves. Even crabs and fish readily 

 fall victims to their attacks ; the horny mail of the one tribe, 

 and the shelly armour of the other, being alike ineffectual for 

 safety, when once the captive is enfolded in the graceful ma- 

 rauder's soft embrace. 



Nor is it the larger species only which are thus rapacious and 

 destructive. Professor Forbes thus speaks of the truculent 



