MEDUSIDyE. 159 



neighbouring water, it sank to the bottom, giving no sign of life. I 

 pursued my walk along the shore, but at the end of ten minutes I 

 returned to my Medusa. It was undulating under the wind ; it had 

 really moved itself, and was swimming about with singular grace, its 

 hair flying round it as it swam ; gently it retired from the rock, not 

 quickly, but still it went, and I soon saw it a long way off." 



Of all the forms which live in the ocean there are none more 

 numerous in species or more singular in their structure, more odd 

 in their form, or more remarkable in their mode of reproduction, 

 than those to which Linnaeus gave the name of Medusa, from the 

 mythical chief of the Gorgons. 



The seas of every latitude of the globe furnish various tribes of 

 these singular beings. They live in the icy waters which bathe 

 Spitzbergen, Greenland, and Iceland ; they multiply under the fires 

 of the Equator, and the frozen regions of tlie South nourish 

 numerous species. They are, of all animals, those which present the 

 least solid substance. Their bodies are little else than water, which 

 is scarcely retained by an imperceptible organic network ; their 

 bodies are a transparent jelly, almost without consistence. " It is a 

 true sea-water jelly," says Reaumur, writing in 1701 of a Medusa, 

 "having little colour or consistence. If we take a morsel in our 

 hands, the natural heat is sufficient to dissolve it into water." 



Spallanzani could only obtain five or six grains from the pellicle 

 of a Medusa weighing fifty ounces. From certain specimens weighing 

 from ten to twelve pounds, only six to seven pennyweights could be 

 obtained of solid matter, according to Fredol. " Mr. Telfair saw an 

 enormous Medusa (?) which had been abandoned on the beach at 

 Bombay ; three days after, the animal began to putrefy. To satisfy 

 his curiosity, he got the neighbouring boatmen to keep an eye upon 

 it, in order to gather the bones and cartilages belonging to the great 

 creature, if by chance it had any ; but its decomposition was so rapid 

 and complete that it left no remains, although it required nine months 

 to dissipate it entirely." 



"Floating on the bosom of the waters," says Fredol, "the 

 Medusa resembles a bell, an umbrella, or, better still, a floating 

 mushroom, the stalk of which has been here separated into lobes 

 more or less divergent, sinuous, twisted, shrivelled, fringed, the edges 

 of the cap being delicately cut, and provided with long thread-like 

 appendages, which descend vertically into the water like the drooping 

 branches of the weeping willow." 



The gelatinous substance of which the body of the Medu.sa is 

 formed is sometimes as colourless and limpid as crystal ; sometimes 



