JELLY-FISHES 



359- 



ginal canal from the several mouths of the radiating 

 canals. 



This is a very simple and rudimentary blood-system. 

 There is here no heart with its pulsations, no proper ar- 

 teries or veins, no lungs for oxygenation; but the prod- 

 ucts of digestion are themselves thus circulated through 

 the system. And this brings me back to the central 

 point, whence you see depending the curious organ I 

 spoke of. A long cylinder of highly 

 movable and evidently sensitive flesh, 

 hangs down from the middle of the 

 roof exactly like the clapper of a 

 bell; and % as if to add to the re- 

 semblance, this, same clapper is sus- 

 pended by a narrow cord, and is 

 terminated by a knob. 



Sometimes this whole organ is 

 allowed to hang about as low as the 

 edge of the bell; then it gradually 

 lengthens to twice, thrice, nay to 

 five times that length; the tongue 

 lolling out of the mouth to a most 

 uncouth distance, and even the sus- 

 pending cord (as I presume to term 

 the attenuated basal portion) reach- 

 ing far beyond the margin; then, on 

 a sudden, like the tentacles, the 

 tongue is contracted, thrown into wrinkles, curle'd into 

 curves, and the whole is sheltered within the concavity; 

 presently, however, to loll out again. 



This proboscis-like organ is called the peduncle, and 

 its office is that of a stomach, of which the knob at the 



SARSIA. 



