278 A LIVING WHIRLPOOL. 



the tip, and down the other in ceaseless waves, an 

 appearance which no familiarity enables one to look 

 on without admiration and delight. Every moment 

 too, one and another of the tentacles is thrown inward 

 with a sudden jerk towards the centre, bending over 

 the head, and then gracefully recovers its place. This 

 action, which seems odd and unaccountable at first, is 

 an instinctive effort to secure food, the great object of 

 life, the end for which the protrusion of the polype, the 

 bell-like expansion of its tentacles, and the unceasing 

 play of their cilia are alike ordained. In order to 

 make this action intelligible it is necessary to premise 

 that a stationary polype, being unable to seek its food, 

 must be provided with means to bring it within reach: 

 the cilia accomplish this ; they create an impetuous 

 current in a certain definite direction, and form a 

 vortex in the surrounding water, whose effects are felt 

 to an incredible distance. Any minute floating animal- 

 cule near is drawn into this whirlpool, the centre of 

 which is the bottom of the polype's bell ; once within 

 the circle; it is whirled round and round, descending 

 at each gyration till at length it is within the fatal 

 circle ; the glassy tentacles encompass it with a wall 

 on every side, and it still whirls round with ever 

 increasing velocity in the giddy dance, and at length 

 is sucked into the yawning abyss at the bottom, the 

 gaping throat, which expands with a treacherous 

 embrace as the helpless atom enters, and then closes 

 over it with a strong muscular contraction, forcing it 

 down into the stomach, no more to emerge alive. 

 But if, in performing the gyration within the bell, 

 the floating atom should be driven too near the 



