AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 197 



and other advantages, more known, it will be far better 

 appreciated than it is at present. The Rectory is in the 

 incumbency of the Rev. Peregrine A. Ilbert, MA.."* 



The church is an ancient edifice, not long ago restored 

 at considerable expense, and there is a good school for 

 children of both sexes. 



Some time since there were seen on Thurlestone beach 

 several specimens of that curious creature called the 

 "Portuguese Man-of-war" (Physalia pelagica). They are 

 abundant in tropical seas, and especially so on the vast 

 shores of Australia, but it is a very unusual circumstance 

 to see them on our own coast, whither they were probably 

 driven by stormy weather. After being beaten about by 

 the waves, much of the beauty of the creature was de- 

 stroyed; but in its natural condition it has been described 

 as "an inflated oblong bladder, glowing in delicate crimson 

 tints, as it floats on the waves; and not only with crimson, 

 but with veinings of rich purple, and opaline flashes of 

 azure, orange, and green, changing in position at every 

 movement; with long dependent tentacles of the deepest 

 purple, the rich tone of which is seen even beneath the 

 water." The earliest modern name of this zoophyte, Acale- 

 pha pelagica, or Sea-nettle, was given it in consequence of 

 the venomous sting caused by the tentacles, a sting which 

 leaves after it a white pimple, precisely similar in appear- 

 ance to that caused by a nettle. 



" Strange traditionary tales of the practice of ' wrecking ' 

 or plundering the cargoes of lost ships are rife all round 

 the extensive coast line of Devon and Cornwall. It cannot 

 be denied that the spectacle of a homeward-bound Indiaman, 

 or richly-freighted trader from the Mediterranean, drifting 



* Morris's " Devonshire." 



