HYDROZOA. 41 



latter are minute ; but wonders are not the less 

 wonderful for being packed in a small compass. A 

 whale is not above a minnow for his mere bigness." 



It was, doubtless, a brave attempt of the adventurer 

 who first dared to trust himself in a boat upon the sur- 

 face of the ocean, neither is it difficult to imagine the 

 trembling confidence with which he framed his rude 

 bark, and hoisted the rough sail of mat or canvas to 

 the favouring breeze, following the course of some 

 great river, the Euphrates or the Tigris, till he reached 

 the sea, vaunting himself upon his ingenuity ; and yet, 

 to his astonishment, he must have found, dancing 

 before him f on the sun-lit wave, a boat, far more 

 beautiful than that he had contrived, with mast, and 

 sail, and ballast, all complete. 



The Sallee-man (Veletta* scaphoidea\ as it is prettily named in 

 Latin, consists of a transparent disk of purest jelly, supported by 

 a delicate plate of firmer texture, lodged in its interior; upon its 

 upper surface there is raised a mast, a thin, broad film of cartilage, 

 011 which is spread a sail, worthy to waft along a fairy queen ; while 



Fl*. 26 VELELLA. 



from beneath hang polype-like appendages that fish for food. To 

 perfect so beautiful a contrivance, in Rataria, a kindred species, the 

 crest, is found to contain fibrous threads, apparently of a muscular 

 nature, by the contractions of which the sail can be lowered or elevated 

 at the pleasure of the little mariner. 



Perhaps there are few animals more beautiful 

 than 



The Globe Beroe (Cy dipped P ileus) (Fig. 27) ; if placed in a glass 

 of clear sea- water, it looks like a sphere of the purest ice, from which 

 can be protruded two long tentacles, each of which is furnished along 

 one side with a series of spirally-twisting filaments. Stretching from 



* Velella, a little sail ; scaphoidea, like a boat. 

 t Cydippe, the name of a goddess. 



