356 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



cold (for the animal has a cold touch) it seemed as.if my arm 

 had been plunged up to the shoulder in a caldron of boiling oil, 

 so that I screamed with pain." In his journey round the 

 world, Dr. Meyen also relates the case of a sailor who jumped 

 overboard to catch a physalia. But scarce had he come within 

 reach of its tentacles when the excruciating pain almost de- 

 prived him of sensation, and he was with great difficulty hauled 

 out of the water. A severe fever was the consequence, and 

 his life was for some time despaired of. 



Several of the Physophoridse are provided, besides the float, 

 with swimming-bells (nectocah/ces) and peculiar appendages 

 or bractese (hydrophyllia), which, over- 

 lapping the polypites, serve for their 

 protection. The graceful Athorybia 

 rosacea possesses from twenty to forty 

 of these organs inserted in two or three 

 circlets immediately below the pneuma- 

 tocyst, and above a much smaller num- 

 ber of polypites. 



It has the power of alternately raising 

 and depressing them so as to render 

 them agents of propulsion. 



ThePhysophorae have no hydrophyllia, 

 but their swimming-bells are consider- 

 ably developed, and serve as powerful 

 instruments of locomotion. They are 

 also provided with certain processes 

 termed " hydrocysts," which some ob- 

 servers appear disposed to regard as 

 organs of touch. Such are but a few 

 of the numerous genera of the Physo 

 phoridse. 



Of the jelly-fishes in general it may 



be remarked that, though they are 



denizens of the frigid as well as of 



the temperate and tropical seas, their 



pft«: *;."i£H£' * Fofy ' beauty increases on advancing towards 



the equator, for while the Medusae in 



our latitudes are generally dull and obscure, those of the torrid 



zone appear in all the splendour of the azure, golden-yellow, or 



Physophora Philippii. 

 . Pneumatophore. r. Swimming. 



