240 THE OCEAN WOKLD. 



these living colonies detach themselves reluctantly from the strange 

 spectacle, where each polyp seems to play the part of the fisherman 

 who throws his line, furnished with baited hooks, withdrawing it 

 when he feels a nibble, and throwing again when he discovers his dis- 

 appointment. These efforts continue in full vigour for two or three 

 days, and I have succeeded sometimes in feeding them with the small 

 crustaceans which swarm on our coasts." 



Of the " personelle " of these colonies a few words will not be mis- 

 placed. The common axis of the Agalma is a hollow muscular tube, the 

 length of which may be three feet, and its breadth an eighth or tenth 

 of an inch ; it is traversed by a double current of granulous liquid ; at 

 its summit is the aerial vesicle ; beneath are the swimming vessels. 

 These are disposed along the trunk in a double series, attaining some- 

 times the number of sixty ; their structure is analogous to the same 

 organs in the Physophora. 



In examining the posterior portion of the trunk, traversing polyps 

 are observed at intervals, whose base is surrounded by a cluster of 

 reddish grains, each of which is armed with a line, and with its 

 surrounding filament, terminating in a tendril of a red vermilion 

 colour, which is a perfect arsenal of offensive and defensive arms. 

 There we find " sabres " of divers sizes, and poniards of various forms, 

 the whole constituting a truly formidable stinging apparatus. 



These warlike engines, these arms of attack and defence with which 

 man surrounds himself, Nature has freely bestowed on these little 

 creatures with which the ocean swarms in some places. It might be 

 said that, after having created these graceful creatures to ornament 

 and decorate the depths of the ocean, the Creator was so pleased with 

 His work that He furnished them with arms for their protection and 

 defence against all attacks from without. 



Among these creatures we may note the pretty Apolemia contorta 

 of Milne Edwards (Fig. 98), which also inhabits the Mediterranean, 

 and particularly the coast of Nice, and is no less admirable in its 

 structure than Agalma rubra. This elegant species is often met with 

 in the Gulf of Villafranca, near Nice, and has been figured and 

 described by Milne Edwards, Charles Yogt, and also by M. de Quatre- 

 fages, who asks the reader " to figure to himself an axis of flexible 

 crystals, sometimes more than a metre (forty inches), all round which 

 are attached, by means of long peduncles or footstalks equally trans- 



