10 LIVING LIGHTS. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE METEORS OF THE SEA. 



AS the rushing comets dim the brightest luminaries 

 with their radiance, so the ocean meteors, the moving 

 medusce, seem to excel in the glory of their light. 



The sea-jellies are among the commonest forms of the sea- 

 shore. In the summer months the silvery sands are strewn 

 with their glassy disks ; unattractive then, but, once launched 

 and imbued with life, possessed of many beauties of form and 

 color. They range in size from those almost invisible to the 

 naked eye, to giants weighing, it is estimated, over a ton. 

 Many have a complicated structure ; yet, in nearly all, the 

 solid parts of the animal rarely represents over five per cent 

 of the whole ; and in specimens of a familiar northern kind, 

 Aurelia, 95.84 is water. Little opportunity for light in such 

 a creature, one would say ; yet the simple jellies are num- 

 bered amoiig the chief illuminators of the upper region of the 

 ocean. I have observed them in the Atlantic, the Pacific, 

 and in the Gulf of Mexico, in waters of various degrees of 

 temperature ; but, perhaps, the finest exhibition of their 

 phosphorescence was seen off Boon Island, on the coast of 

 Maine. The ocean surface seemed fairly bespangled with 

 these living gems, which appeared surrounded by a halo 

 of light. Each tentacle seemed to glow with an intense 



