PH YSOPHORID&. \ 45 



*' During the first voyage of the Princess Louise round the world," 

 to quote Fredol, " Meyen remarked a magnificent Physalia, which 

 passed near the ship. A young sailor leaped naked into the sea, to 

 seize the animal. Swimming towards it, he seized it ; the creature 

 surrounded the person of its assailant with its numerous thread-like 

 filaments, which were nearly a yard in length ; the young man, over- 

 whelmed by a feeling of burning pain, cried out for assistance. He 

 had scarcely strength to reach the vessel and get aboard again, before 

 the pain and inflammation were so violent that brain fever declared 

 itself, and great fears were entertained for his life." 



The question has been much agitated, without being positively 

 resolved, whether the Physalia are poisonous or not : if they can kill 

 or make sick the man or animal which swallows them. Listen to the 

 opinions of M. Ricord-Madiana, a physician of Guadaloupe, who 

 made direct experiments with a view to settling the question. 

 " Many inhabitants of the Antilles," he says, " say that the ' galleys ; 

 are poisonous, and that the negroes make use of them, after being 

 dried and powdered, to poison both men and animals. The fisher- 

 men of the islands also believe that fish which have swallowed them 

 become deleterious, and poison those that eat them, a prejudice 

 which has been adopted by many travellers, and has even found its ' 

 way into scientific books. We can state as the result of direct 

 experiment, that though the 'galley/ will burn the ignorant hand 

 which is touched by its tentacles, when dried in the sun and pul- 

 verised it becomes mere grains of dead matter, producing no effect 

 whatever upon the animal economy." 



" Let us report our own experiments," continues M. Ricord- 

 Madiana. 



" I. I had placed a ' galley ' in the sun, in order to dry and 

 pulverise it. A nest of ants were there, who devoured the whole of 

 it. Now, many persons in the islands think that these insects will 

 not touch venomous fishes. 



"II. Another 'galley,' which I had left on the table in my 

 laboratory, was attacked by a number of great flies, who deposited 

 their eggs there ; these were duly hatched, and the larva fed on the 

 decomposed zoophyte. 



"III. On the 1 2th of July, 1823, I saw on the sands in the bay 

 between St. Mary and La Goyave, at Guadaloupe, many Physalia 

 recently cast ashore. Having a dog with me, with the assistance of 

 my servant, I made him swallow the freshest of them, with all its 

 filiform tentacles, pushing it down his throat, while my servant held 

 his mouth open ; five minutes after, the dog exhibited symptoms of 



