252 THE OCEAN WOELD. 



The habits of the Physalia are still imperfectly known, but among 

 the many strange forms of brilliant colour and elegant contour, which 

 swarm in the warmer parts of the opean, " 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 sailors tell 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 scrutinizing the ocean- 

 rover at leisure, as it hastily rises and falls on the long, sluggish 

 heavings. of the glassy surface. Then he sees that the comparison of 

 the stranger to a ship is a felicitous one, for at a little' (Fig. 102) 

 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 unfrequently, 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 cap- 

 tured, 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. 

 They were of all sizes within the limits I have mentioned." 



Generally, there is a conspicuous difference between the two extre- 

 mities of the bladder,, one end being rounded, the other more pointed, 

 or terminating in a small knob-like swelling or beak-shaped excres- 

 cence, where there is a minute orifice ; sometimes, however, no such 

 excrescence is visible^ and the orifice cannot be detected. 



" That wonderful river," continues Mr. Gosse, in his nervous, eloquent 

 style, " with a well-defined course through the midst of the Atlantic 

 that Gulf Stream brings on its warm waters many of the denizens of 

 tropical seas, and wafts them to the shores on which its waves impinge. 

 Hence it is that so many of the proper pelagic creatures are from time 

 to time observed on the coasts of Cornwall and Devon. The Portu- 



