62 SqUlRTS, POLYPS, AND JELLY-FISHES. 



The delicate tubes which in Tubularia ensheathe 

 the elongated body-stalk are in a number of forms 

 expanded at their extremities into a cup or bell 

 for the reception of the body of the animal itself. 

 These are the bell-polyps, or campanularians, which 

 grow usually in shrubby clusters, some so small as 

 readily to elude observation, others attaining sev- 

 eral inches in length. I am not sure that the bell- 

 polyp proper (Campanularia) has ever been officially 

 reported from our coast, but if not yet noticed it 

 will almost surely be found in the near future, and 

 it can but affijrd pleasure to make a sharp search 

 after it. Examine the piles, the stones, and the 

 sea^weeds, and let not even the grass-covered shells 

 escape you. Its near ally, the Obelia commissuralis 

 (PI. 4, Fig. 11), has already secreted itself among 

 the time-worn timbers of ancient wrecks, where it 

 hangs in bunchy clusters three inches or more in 

 length. It is also found attached to stones and 

 sea-weeds, giving birth at certain seasons to deli- 

 cate free-swimming medusae, which may be recog- 

 nized by their sixteen tentacles. 



A second species of Obelia (0. gehtinosa), differ- 

 ing from the preceding in its compoundly united, 

 stems, also finds a favored home among the piles, 

 although it is not infrequently found growing from 

 the surfaces of oyster-shells. One of the most 

 beautiful and abundant of the pile-inhabiting polyps 

 or hydroids, especially where the water is in a meas- 

 ure brackish, is the Parypha crocea (PI. 4, Fig. 5), 

 which " forms large clusters of branching stems, 

 often six inches or more in height, each of which 



