THE COASTS OF SICILY. 209 



and Stephanomiae, which he had made the object of 

 careful study during our stay at Torre dell' Isola. 

 He was also enabled to extend to new species, and 

 completely to verify his previous observations on 

 the distinction of the sexes in the Medusae, and on 

 the organisation of the .^Equoridae. 



Naturalists have given the name of Medusae to 

 animals of an exclusively marine character, whose 

 bodies resemble an inverted bell, or rather, perhaps, 

 a mushroom, whose stem is replaced by more or less 

 numerous appendages. Sometimes this singular 

 creature is altogether colourless, and as transparent 

 as crystal. Sometimes, again, it is embellished by 

 the most vivid colours, presenting an opaline trans- 

 lucence, or looking as if it had been adorned with 

 the richest enamel. These singular animals con- 

 tinued for a long time to be despised by naturalists, 

 who, as was the case with Reaumur, looked upon 

 them merely as masses of living jelly. Modern sci- 

 ence, however, by its more searching mode of in- 

 quiry, has succeeded in penetrating into the mystery 

 of these organisms. M. Dumeril, one of the first 

 naturalists who directed his attention to the Medusae, 

 found on injecting the internal cavities with milk, 

 that the liquid was distributed through canals, ar- 

 ranged with almost mathematical regularity. His 

 researches were subsequently still further developed 

 by different observers, and it would almost appear, 

 that the more the organisation of these animals is 

 studied and comprehended, the more convinced have 

 naturalists become that, so far from being simple, it 

 is in the highest degree complicated. In animals of 

 VOL. i. p 



