108 MOTIONS OF ANIMALS. 



cone. The base of the cone is applied to the rock or other 

 substance to which they adhere. With regard to color, 

 some of them are red, some greenish, some whitish, and 

 others are brown. When the mouth, which is very large, is 

 expanded, its margin is surrounded with a great number of 

 fleshy filaments, or horns, similar to those of the snail. These 

 horns are disposed in three rows around the mouth, and give 

 the animal the appearance of a flower. Through each of 

 these horns the sea-nettle squirts water, like so many jets-d'eau. 

 What is peculiar in the structure of these creatures, the whole 

 interior part of their body, or cone, is one cavity, or stomach. 

 When searching for food, they extend their filaments, and 

 entangle any small animals they encounter. When they meet 

 with their prey, they instantly swallow it, and shut their mouths 

 close, like a purse. Though the animal should not exceed an 

 inch or an inch and a half in diameter, as it is all mouth and 

 stomach, it swallows large whelks and muscles. These shell 

 animals sometimes remain many days in the stomach before 

 they are ejected. Their nutritious parts are at last, however, 

 extracted ; but how does the sea-nettle get quit of the shell ? 

 The creature has no other aperture in its body but the mouth, 

 and this mouth is the instrument by which it both receives 

 nourishment, and discharges the excrement, or unprofitable 

 part of its food. When the shell is not too large, the sea- 

 nettle has the power of turning its inside out, and by this 

 strange manoauvre the shell is thrown out of the body, and the 

 animal resumes its former state. But when the shell pre- 

 sents itself in a wrong position, the animal cannot discharge 

 it in the usual manner : but what is extremely singular, near 

 the base of the cone, the body of the creature splits, as if a 

 large wound had been made with a knife, and through this 

 gash the shell of the muscle, or other shell, is ejected. 



With regard to the progressive motion of the sea-nettle, it 

 is as slow as the hour hand of a clock. The whole external 

 part of its body is furnished with numerous muscles. These 

 muscles are tubular, and filled with a fluid, which makes them 

 project in the form of prickles. By the instrumentality of 

 these muscles, the animal is enabled to perform the very slow 

 motion just now mentioned. But this is not the only means 

 by which the sea-nettle is capable of moving. When it 

 pleases, it can loosen the base of the cone by which it is at- 

 tached to the rock, reverse its body, and employ the filaments 

 round its mouth as so many limbs. Still, however, its move- 

 ments are very slow 



