NANOMIA CARA. 



201 



colored axis, with its pale swimming-bells, and farther down, the scales, 

 protecting the different kinds of feeding polyps, with their various 

 kinds of tentacles projecting in all sorts of angles and curves from the 

 main axis of the body, like the festoons of a chandelier ; the darker- 

 colored polyps, tipped and mottled with scarlet, being visible under- 

 neath the protecting scales. (Fig. 332.) 



The swimming-bells are arranged in two vertical rows, consisting of 

 four to six large bells each ; they are placed obliquely, in such a way 



that the wing-like projections of the spherosome encroach upon those 

 of the opposite row, and thus fit closely and compactly together, by a 

 sort of oblique dovetail arrangement ; these bells are only symmet- 

 rical when seen from one of the sides (Fig. 333), when they appear 

 somewhat heart-shaped, having a large cavity which opens externally 

 by means of an aperture (see Fig. 334) in a veil, similar to that of 

 genuine naked-eyed Medusae, and capable, Kke it, of beating up and 



Fig. 332. Nanomia cara ; natural size. 



