MEDUSA AND HER LOCKS. 143 



the shooting pang would occasionally dart through the 

 chest. 



Yet, as before mentioned, the result might have 

 been more disastrous than was the case. Severe as were 

 the effects of the poisoned filaments, their range was 

 extremely limited, extending just above the knee of 

 one leg, the greater part of the right arm, and a few 

 lines on the face, where the water had been splashed 

 by the curling waves. If the injuries had extended to 

 the chest, or over the epigastrium, where so large a 

 mass of nervous matter is collected, I doubt whether I 

 should have been able to reach the shore, or, being 

 there, whether I should have been able to ascend the 

 cutting through the cliffs before the flowing tide had 

 lashed its waves against the white rocks. 



It may be easily imagined that so severe a lesson 

 was not lost upon me, and that ever afterwards I looked 

 out very carefully for the tawny mass of fibre and 

 membrane that once had worked me such woe. 



On one occasion, after just such a gale as had 

 brought the unwelcome visitant to our shores, I was in 

 a rowing boat with several companions, and came across 

 two more specimens of Cyanea capillata, quietly 

 floating along as if they were the most harmless beings 

 that the ocean ever produced. 



My dearly-bought experience was then serviceable 

 to at least one of my companions, who was going to 

 pick up the medusa as it drifted past us, and was only 



