30 HYDROZOA. 



spicable atom viewed alone, but when upon the beach 

 these sands present themselves arrayed in their 

 broad phalanx, where can we obtain a stronger bul- 

 wark to oppose the raging storm ? 



CHAPTER V. 

 HYDROZOA.* 



"!N the army of Xerxes there was a certain race 

 called Sagartians. The mode of fighting practised 

 by these men was this : When they engaged an 

 enemy, they threw out a rope with a noose at the 

 end ; whatever any one caught, either horse or man, 

 he dragged towards himself, and those that were 

 entangled in the coils he speedily put to death." 

 HERODOTUS vii. 85. 



Never was there more truth than in the old saying, 

 " there is nothing new under the sun." Who would 

 have supposed, while reading of the strange feats 

 performed by the Brazilian with his lasso, by the 

 aid of which he literally takes the bull by the horns, 

 or trips up the fleetest steed, that the same weapon 

 was used ages ago to catch Greeks by the neck, instead 

 of horses ; much less could we have imagined that 

 an onslaught apparently so uncouth and barbarous 

 was the mode of warfare of a very considerable 

 proportion of the animal creation ; and yet, seriously 

 speaking, this is the case, the only difference being 

 that the lassos employed by mankind are clumsily 

 made of twisted leather, whereas their prototypes 

 present a delicacy and refinement of structure, which 

 it requires the utmost penetration of the microscope 

 to reveal. There is an animal easily obtainable in 

 summer-time by simply scraping off the slimy surface 

 from -the sticks or leaves that float on almost every 

 pond, called 



* Hydra, the Hydra ; &ov, zoon, an animal. 



