86 POPULAR ILLUSTRATIONS OF 



with the somatic cavity. The ccenosarc now proceeds between the 

 two swimming bells, and through the distal one, whence it floats 

 freely in the water. It bears naked polypites (b), each having a 

 single tentacle, and also polypites covered with a leafylike organ, 

 termed hydrophyllum by Huxley (e). 



Such is the beautiful provision by which the unattached or free 

 Zoophyte is enabled to float or swim through the water. The 

 natural size of the specimen figured is shown by the line by the side 

 of the figure. Nothing can exceed the delicate beauty of these 

 creatures when seen first in their native seas. The coenosarc (a), 

 with its naked and covered series of polypites (b and e), sometimes 

 reaches a length of several inches, and has fifty or sixty or more of 

 these bodies attached to it. They can be drawn entirely within the 

 chamber (&), which is therefore called the house of the Hydra, or, in 

 scientific language, the hydrsecium. So delicate is this ccenosarc that 

 sometimes we are told it can only be seen by the play of the light, 

 and the slightest touch will make it separate from the floats. Cuvier 

 thought these floats were two distinct individual animals, and hence 

 he gave them the name of Diphyes. Professor Huxley has divided 

 the order Calycophoridae into four families. The first three are 

 separated from each other by differences in the hydraecia and hydro- 

 phylla, which I need not enter into. The fourth has many swimming 

 bladders instead of two, and the hydrsecium (k, Fig. 1.10, p. 84) is 

 incomplete. Professor Huxley's history of the " Oceanic Hydrozoa," 

 published by the Bay Society, is a model of scientific detail and 

 elaborate and accurate illustration. Although we cannot go through 

 the voyage of the Eattlesnake with the learned Professor, we can 

 imagine the patient investigation and the real love of science with 

 which, during that survey, he dealt with the various new links in 

 the great chain which came under his notice. And we cannot be 

 too grateful to the man by whose labours the means of studying the 

 beautiful inhabitants of the wide sea are brought within the reach 

 of our library table. 



CHAPTER III. 

 THE PHYSOPHORIIXE. 



THE Physophoridse are, as their name expresses, "Bladder-bearing 

 Zoophytes." The order is represented, but not typically, by the 

 well-known singular creature called by sailors " the Portuguese man- 

 of-war" the Physalia pelagica of scientific naturalists. An oblong 

 bladder-like body about the size of a goose's egg, or larger, with a 



