28o IN LOWER FLORIDA WILDS 



good condition for occupancy, then it came close 

 alongside, whipped its body quickly out of the 

 old residence and into the new, after which it 

 scuttled rapidly away. 



On floating and stranded timber there are 

 thousands of Lepas, a curious animal with flat- 

 tened, bluish white, shelly plates which belongs 

 with the barnacles. It is attached by a scale 

 covered, fleshy stalk, and within the plates are 

 the vital parts. 



One of the commonest marine animals among 

 the Florida Keys and the southeast coast is the 

 Portuguese man-of-war (Physalia arethusa). It 

 is really a sort of community of organisms united 

 in one body. There is an elongated, doubly 

 pointed, inflated sac, which keeps the whole afloat, 

 and this is surmounted by a crest that acts as a 

 sail. The float is filled with air and rests on the 

 surface of the sea, while from it depends a mass 

 of tentacles and various organs. These are at- 

 tached a little to one side of the base of the 

 sac near its broader end. According to Mrs. 

 Arnold in her excellent book, The Sea Beach 

 at Ebb Tide, these streamers sometimes attain a 

 length of forty or fifty feet when the creature is 



