158 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
act is the immediate production of an organism which itself is fertile. 
In the second, including Rizostoma, the result is a fixed and sexless 
Lucernaroid, which by fission gives rise to zooid forms of dispropor- 
tionate size, in which the reproductive organs are developed. In the 
first division one family has the umbrella permanently free ; in the 
other it is furnished with an organ of attachment. Three families of 
this Lucernariade have been defined :—1. Lucernaride. 2. Pelagide. 
3. Rhizostomide. 
If we walk along the sea shore, after the reflux of the tide, we 
may often see, lying immovable upon the sands, gelatinous disc-like 
masses of a greenish colour and repulsive appearance, from which 
the eye and the steps instinctively turn aside. These beings, whose 
blubber-like appearance inspires only feelings of disgust when seen 
lying grey and dead on the shore, are, however, when seen floating 
on the bosom of the ocean, one of its most graceful ornaments. 
These are Medusze. When seen suspended in the middle of the 
waves, like a piece of gauze or an, azure bell, terminating in delicate 
silvery garlands, we cannot but admire their iridescent colours, or 
deny that these objects, so forbidding in some of their aspects, rank, 
in their natural localities, among the most elegant productions of 
Nature. We could not better commence our studies of these 
children of the sea than by quoting a passage from the poet 
Michelet :—“ Among the rugged rocks and lagunes, where the 
retiring sea has left many little animals which were too sluggish or 
too weak to follow it, some: shells will be left there to themselves 
and suffered to become quite dry. In the midst of them, without 
shell and without shelter, extended at our feet, lies the animal which 
we call by the very inappropriate name of the AfZedusa. Why was 
this name, of terrible associations, given to a creature so charming ? 
Often have I had my attention arrested by these castaways which we 
see so often on the shore. They are small, about the size of my 
hand, but singularly pretty, of soft light shades, of an opal white, 
where it lost itself as in a cloud of tentacles; a crown of tender lilies 
—the wind had overturned it ; its crown of lilac hair floated about, 
and the delicate umbel, that is, its proper body, was beneath ; it had 
touched the rock—dashed against it ; it was wounded, torn in its 
fine locks, which are also its organs of respiration, absorption, and 
even of love. . . . . The delicious creature, with its visible 
innocence, and the iridescence of its soft colours, was left like a 
gliding, trembling jelly. I paused beside it, nevertheless: I glided 
my hand under it, raised the motionless body cautiously, and 
restored it to its natural position for swimming. Putting it into the 
