PRIMITIVE LASSO-THROWERS. 
> VERY one knows that the long cord or thong, called the 
lasso, is the peculiar weapon of the South American 
hunter. Almost from his earliest childhood the young 
Gaucho learns to amuse himself with it, and as soon as he 
is able to walk takes great pleasure in catching young birds 
and other animals around his father’s hut, hurling the long 
lash with such dexterity that the noose drops over their 
bodies and brings them to his feet. Did we wish to select 
from among all the denizens of life the most brilliant, grace- 
ful, and sylph-like, whose very life-histories read more like 
the romance of poetry than sober reality, we would choose 
those which might be appropriately designated the lasso- 
throwers. 
Now among animals, as is only too well known, any 
weapons which they could be called upon to use must 
develop in their own bodies, and therefore it could hardly 
be suspected that a simple jelly-animal could be provided 
with a lasso ready grown in its own flesh. Yet it is so, for 
in that class of animals, which ranks just above the sponges, 
we discover a weapon of this kind as simple and as deadly, 
and far more wonderful in its action than any used by man. 
In fresh-water ponds, attached by its base to the under 
surfaces of aquatic plants, may be found a very small animal, 
just large enough to be seen without the aid of a lens, usu- 
ally pale green, but sometimes of a brown color. This is 
our common hydra, technically called Hydra fusca. It is 
nothing more than a tube or sac, with a sucker at one end 
to hold on with, and a mouth at the other, surrounded with 
