THE "PORTUGUESE MAN-OF-WAR." 



121 



is some evidence on the other side which would indicate that on occasions, at least, it is 

 poisonous. 



The habits of the Physalia are only known in part, though they have been studied by 

 many scientists. Among the many denizens of the ocean, "none," says Gosse,* "take a 

 stronger hold on the fancy of the beholder ; certainly none is more familiar than the little thing 

 he daily marks floating in the sun-lit waves, as the ship glides swiftly by, which the sailor tells 

 him is the " Portuguese man-of-war." Perhaps a dead calm has settled over the sea, and he 

 leans over the bulwarks of the ship, scrutinising this ocean-rover at leisure, as it hastily rises 

 and falls on the long, sluggish hearings of the glassy surface. 

 Then he sees that the comparison of the stranger to a ship is 

 a felicitous one, for at a little distance it might well be 

 mistaken for a child's mimic boat, shining in all the gaudy 

 painting in which it left the toy-shop. 



" Not unf requently one of these tiny vessels comes so close 

 alongside that by means of the ship's bucket, with the assistance 

 of a smart fellow who has jumped into the ' chains ' with a 

 boat-hook, it is captured and brought on deck for examination. 

 A dozen voices are, however, lifted, warning you by no means 

 to touch it, for well the experienced sailor knows its terrible 

 powers of defence. It does not now appear so like a ship as 

 when it was at a distance. It is an oblong bladder of tough 

 membrane, varying considerably in shape, for no two agree in 

 this respect ; varying also in size, from less than an inch to the 

 size of a man's hat. Once, on a voyage to Mobile, when 

 rounding the Florida reef, I was nearly a whole day passing 

 through a fleet of these little Portuguese men-of-war, which 

 studded the smooth sea as far as the eye could reach, and must have 

 extended for many miles." It is often to be seen on the coasts 

 of Devon and Cornwall, brought thither by the Gulf Stream. 



The Physalia is the natural enemy of the cuttle-fish "and the flying-fish. One an 

 inch in length will numb and kill a fish larger than a herring. " Each tentacle, by a 

 movement as rapid as a flash of light, or sudden as an electric shock, seizes and benumbs 

 them, winding round their bodies as a serpent winds itself round its victim." Mr. Bennet, 

 who accompanied the expedition under Admiral Fitzroy as naturalist, describes them as 

 seizing their prey by means of the tentacles, which are alternately contracted to half an 

 inch, and then shot out with amazing velocity to several feet, dragging the helpless and 

 entangled prey to the sucker-like mouth and stomach-like cavities among the tentacles. Others 

 have observed bold little fish unharmed among the feelers, a proof that even a Physalia 

 can be good-natured sometimes. 



An attendant satellite of the Physalia is the Velella, a smaller animal of the same family, 

 especially abundant in tropical seas, but often seen elsewhere. It also possesses stinging 

 powers. 



* " A Year by the Sea-side." 



136 



PHYSALIA ANTARCTICA. 



