frhe Wit of the Wild 



r 



of labor fixed individualization, which is never 

 transgressed because each member is capable 

 of but a single kind of work. 



Three kinds of zooids may be discerned. The 

 first to attract the eye are the long and writh- 

 ing tentacles which trail like living thick-edged 

 ribbons beneath the float. Some are contracted 

 into tight brown ringlets, others crinkled, 

 others hanging loose and long. Their elas- 

 ticity is enormous, so that when the wind is 

 strong they may trail thirty or fifty feet behind 

 a physalia of large size, forming what sailors 

 know as a " wind anchor " against drifting 

 ashore and causing the little ship to " heave to," 

 as has been explained. The business of these 

 scores of long, sensitive, contractile tentacles 

 is to find and seize the prey upon which this 

 man-o'-war subsists. This food consists of 

 small, juicy larvae of shellfish of every kind, 

 fragile oceanic relatives of the shrimp, tiny 

 fishes, and anything else small and soft. 



The instant such an unfortunate swims 

 against the invisible nets of this Medusa of the 

 sea, the tentacles cling and wind about it, and 



