PHYVSOPHORIDA. T49 
made him turn pale.” M. Leblond concludes, from this and other 
facts, that the fishes which eat the Physalia become a poison for those 
who eat them, although it does not appear that he had any evidence 
of the fish having ate the “ galley,” or any other poison. 
The habits of the Physalia are still imperfectly known, but among 
the many strange forms of brilliant colour and elegant contour which 
swarm in the warmer parts of the ocean, “none,” says Gosse, “take a 
stronger hold on the fancy of the beholder; certainly none is more 
familiar than the little thing he daily marks floating in the sun-lit 
waves, as the ship glides swiftly by, which the sailors tell him is the 
Portuguese man-of-war. Perhaps a dead calm has settled over the 
sea, and he leans over the bulwarks of the ship scrutinising this ocean- 
rover at leisure, as it hastily rises and falls on the long, sluggish 
heavings of the glassy surface. Theh he sees that the comparison of 
the stranger to a ship is a felicitous one, for at a little distance it 
might well be mistaken for a child’s mimic boat, shining in all the 
gaudy painting in which it left the toy-shop. (Fig. 49.) 
“‘Not unfrequently, one of these tiny vessels comes so close along- 
side, that, by means of the ship’s bucket, with the assistance of a 
smart fellow who has jumped into the ‘chains’ with a boat-hook, it 
is captured, and brought on deck for examination. A dozen voices 
are, however, lifted, warning you by no means to touch it, for well the 
experienced sailor knows its terrible powers of defence. It does not 
now appear so like a ship as when it was at a distance. It is an 
oblong bladder of tough membrane, varying considerably in shape, 
for no two agree in this respect ; varying also in size, from less than 
an inch to the size of a man’s hat. Once, on a voyage to Mobile, 
when rounding the Florida reef, I was nearly a whole day passing 
through a fleet of these little Portuguese men-of-war, which studded 
the smooth sea as far as the eye could reach, and must have extended 
for many miles. They were of all sizes within the limits I have 
mentioned.” 
Generally, there is a conspicuous difference between the two 
extremities of the bladder, one end being rounded, the other more 
pointed, or terminating in a small knob-like swelling or beak-shaped 
excrescence, where there is a minute orifice ; sometimes, however, no 
such excrescence is visible, and the orifice cannot be detected. 
“That wonderful river,” continues Mr. Gosse, in his nervous, 
eloquent style, “ with a well-defined course through the midst of the 
Atlantic—the Gulf Stream—brings on its warm waters many of the 
denizens of tropical seas, and wafts them to the shores on which its 
waves impinge. Hence it is that so many of the proper pelagic 
