The Mighty Deep 



substance, some are so frail and watery that 

 they can only be lifted out of the sea in a pail. 

 Any other mode causes them to drop to pieces. 



But the most wonderful and beautiful charac- 

 teristic of the jelly-fish is that of its self-illumin- 

 ating power. 



Here is a description of one kind, found in the 

 Atlantic, near the coast of North America : — 



*' Objects of more exquisite beauty than some 

 of these hydroid-medusae do not perhaps exist. 

 Each minute crystal chalice, with its beautifully 

 curved outline, elongated delicate tentacles, 

 gently coiling and uncoiling, and its slender 

 proboscis which hangs like a lamp in the centre, 

 lighting it with a soft phosphorescent glow, is 

 the very type of delicate beauty, suggesting the 

 wonders of fairyland." '^^ 



And here is another description, no less 

 striking ; not this time of a floating medusa, 

 but of a small coral-zoophyte, about ten inches 

 lono^, common in the Mediterranean and in the 

 Atlantic : — 



*' Nothing can exceed the beauty of the 

 elegant opaline polyps of this zoophyte when 

 fully expanded, and clustered like flowers on 

 their orange-coloured stalk ; a beauty, however, 



* J. S. KiNGSLEY. 

 204 



