40 Life and Immortality. 



of huge jelly-fishes, covering the sea for miles and miles, 

 transparent domes by day and phosphorescing lights by night, 

 and now as tiny balls of jelly, glistening by millions in some 

 quiet bay and splintering into light upon the beach ; or in 

 the form of living animal-trees waving their graceful arms 

 over rocks in waters deep, or creeping like delicate threads 

 over shells and stones and seaweed on the shore, where 

 they often lose their identity and are mistaken for plants. 

 There is scarcely a nook or cranny in the bed of ocean 

 where these tree-like forms, associated with the beautiful 

 sea-anemone, whose brilliant crimson, green and purple are 

 unmatched in color by gem and flower, are not to be found. 

 All these beautiful creatures, as well as the living coral 

 that nestles in the bosom of the warm Mediterranean or the 

 sea that lashes our Southern shores, or that struggles boldly 

 against Pacific's waves, are lasso-throwers. Ccelenterata^ the 

 "hollow-bodied animals," because of the large cavity within 

 their bodies, is the name by which they are known to science. 

 They naturally fall into two families, the Hydrozoa, or Water 

 Animals, and the Actinizoa, or Ray-like Animals, our little 

 Hydra, about which so much has been written, being repre- 

 sentative of the former and the Anemones of the latter 

 division. 



