62 BY THE DEEP SEA. 



arctica), with an umbrella-disk like those we have mentioned, 

 but measuring no less than seven feet across, yet originating 

 as a bud from a lowly coralline not exceeding half-an-inch in 

 stature. Others are not solitary individuals, but companies of 

 polyps that share the organ which bears them through the 

 waters. Such is the case with the Physalia and the Velella, 

 the appendages of which consist not of one rnouth and 

 stomach, but of many. 



I remarked near the beginning of this chapter that the Jelly- 

 fish was very largely composed of water. Professor Owen, 

 not content with having to make an indefinite statement of 

 that kind, went carefully into the matter of pounds and ounces 

 and grains. He said : " Let this fluid part of a Medusa (Jelly- 

 fish), which may weigh two pounds when recently removed 

 from the sea, drain from the solid parts of the body, and these, 

 when dried, will be represented by a thin film of membrane, 

 not exceeding thirty grains in weight." 



As a practical illustration of the value of having that amount 

 of knowledge respecting such trivial things as Jelly fish, the 

 late Robert Patterson, F.R.S., gives the following story, which 

 was told to him as a personal experience by an eminent zoolo- 

 gist, whose name he does not mention. 



"This gentleman had been delivering some zoological 

 lectures in a seaport town in Scotland, in the course of which 

 he had adverted to some of the most remarkable points in the 

 economy of the Acalephse. After the lecture a farmer, who 

 had been present, came forward and inquired if he had under- 

 stood him correctly, as having stated that the Medusae con- 

 tained so little of solid material, that they might be regarded 

 as little else than a mass of animated sea-water. On being 

 answered in the affirmative, he remarked that it would have 

 saved him many a pound had he known that sooner, for he 

 had been in the habit of employing his men and horses carting 

 away large quantities of Jelly-fish from the shore, and using 

 them as manure on his farm ; and he now believed they could 



