86 SOiTE "WONDERS OF THE SEA. 



once a farmer near to the sea-shore carted whole waggon- 

 loads of Jelly Fishes aAvay as manure for his fields, the 

 result of the day's labours in procuring animal substance 

 might have been carried away in one of the pockets of 

 the farmer's coat. 



Yet, if we pick up one of these apparently inanimate 

 lumps of jelly, and carry it to a clear pool left by the 

 tide, new life seems to awaken in it. From the edge of 

 the mushroom-like cap a number of delicate transparent 

 filaments are unfolded, and the whole of the cap begins 

 to pulsate slowly, but regularly, the alternate contrac- 

 tions and expansions serving to propel it gently through 

 the water, in which it floats as a parachute floats in the 

 air. It does not seem able to direct its course to any 

 definite point, but it is far from being the inanimate jelly 

 which it appears when lying on the shore. 



If taken up in the hands it can be torn, or rather 

 broken, to pieces, the fracture being very much like that 

 of the gelatine which is so often imposed en us under the 

 name of calf's-foot jelly. 



Were it only composed of water entangled in a fine 

 animal network, the water would escape when it was 

 broken. But no more water issues from it than when 

 it was intact, and, on holding the broken piece up to the 

 light, fine thread-like network can be seen plainly, as the 

 fibres, which are scarcely thicker than the filaments of a 

 spider's web, have a slightly different refractive power 

 from the water, which is abundantly and securely im- 

 prisoned among them. 



