54 NATURAL HISTORY OF OUR SHORES 



an olive-green with pink reflections. It is an object of very 

 great beauty, and was termed by the old naturalist Ellis 

 " the lovely Lamp polyp." 



In each of the spaces between the tentacles there is a 

 curious little hollow body with an opening on the inner 

 side. These bodies are termed Colleto-Cystophores, but 

 their function does not appear to be well known. They 

 cannot be very important, as Liicernaria proper, the type 

 of the genus, is without them. 



When a leaf of sea-grass with one of these animals 

 attached is taken from the sea the animal only looks like 

 a blob of half -set glue, but as soon as it is dropped into the 

 collector's bottle, into sea- water, it expands into full beauty. 



The Jelly-fishes. We now reach the true Medusce, or 

 " Jelly-fishes " of common parlance the " Sea blubbers " 

 of the vulgar. 



At certain seasons these swarm in our seas, and in 

 those of all warm and temperate zones, often giving a 

 characteristic appearance to the waters in harbours and 

 at the mouth of estuaries. 



The " Shore " is not the proper place to look for them 

 with a view to their study, for the cast-up specimens, so 

 frequent everywhere, have always suffered structurally 

 through contact with something harder than themselves, 

 which it is not difficult to find. 



Naturalists term these the Scyphomedusce. in contra- 

 distinction to the Hydromedusce, those small forms we have 

 glanced at, which are the alternate generation of the 

 Hydroid zoophytes. 



They are again divided according to their anatomy, 

 though to the casual observer they are little more than 

 lumps of Blancmange. They have sense organs, muscle and 

 nerve, but of an exceedingly primitive kind. 



The form most usually found stranded on the shore is the 

 large Rhizostoma, as it is firmer than any of the others, 



