JELLY-FISH 



4ir 



delicate that it is almost impossible to see them. These are the 

 fishing-lines with which the jelly-fish captures its prey; for it feeds 

 on living victims, although it looks so harmless, and sometimes 

 destroys them in considerable numbers. Yet the threads are so 



Jelly-fish 



very slight that one wonders how they can ever hold their 

 prisoners; much more how they can kill them. 



But the mystery is easily explained. Each fishing-line, although 

 it is so delicate, has some hundreds of minute oval cells running all 

 along its length; and in each cell lies a slender, sharply -pointed 

 dart tightly coiled up. As soon as a small animal comes into 

 contact with the line, however, the cells open and the darts fly 

 out, and in an instant their needle-like points have entered the 

 flesh of the victim. In its struggles to escape it brushes against 

 other fishing-lines, which fasten on to it in the same way; and, 

 as the darts are all poisoned, the captive very soon dies. 



Very few jelly-fish are able to injure a human being. But one, 

 which is often found off our coasts towards the end of summer, 



