214 EAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



Cuvier thought we might regard as the represen- 

 tative of the entire animal.* 



Systematic naturalists have arranged, next to the 

 Medusae and Beroi'da3, the Stephanomiae, which, to- 

 gether with other hydrostatic Acalephae, must pro- 

 bably be ranked amongst the most extraordinary of 

 the animals which the marine world offers to our 

 notice. Imagine an axis of flexible crystal, some- 

 times more than a yard in length, around which are 

 attached by long and equally transparent peduncles, 

 hundreds of small bodies, either elongated in form, 

 or flattened, and looking like the buds of a flower ; 

 and then intersperse in this garland beads of the 

 most vivid red, blended among an infinite number of 

 variously-sized filaments. Add motion and life to 

 all these parts, bearing in mind that each one is an 

 organ possessed of special functions ; the one being 

 destined to seize the food, another to digest it, a third 

 to assure the propagation of the species, a fourth to 

 carry on the respiration, and a fifth perhaps to serve 

 as eyes; and after the consideration of all these 

 marvels, you will still have only a feeble idea of the 

 wonderful nature of this organisation. It constitutes 

 a kind of colony, not composed of distinct indi- 

 viduals, as in the case of Polypes, but of freely 

 floating organs. f It would be much the same as 



* In an important memoir on the organisation of the Medusa, 

 M. Agassiz has described a continuous and complicated nervous 

 system; while Ehrenberg had only detected the presence of isolated 

 ganglia. [The nervous system of the Beroe was first described by 

 Grant.] 



f Since the hydrostatic Acalephse or Siphonophora have been 

 better known, some naturalists have proposed a new point of view 



