240 AQUATIC MICROSCOPY FOR BEGINNERS. 



waves its silvery tentacles, until the whole surface of 

 that ugly jelly-mass blooms I'ke a garden in Paradise — 

 blooms not with motionless perianths, but with living 

 animals, the most exquisite that God has allowed to- 

 develop in our sweet waters. Perhaps you make an in- 

 articulate cry to your companion, who is probably won- 

 dering why you are sostilland what you are doing on the 

 ground with the lens so close to the bottle, and as he 

 too gets down and brings his lens to bear, maybe 

 he jars the water, and the lovely Polyzoa flash their 

 tentacles together and dart backward into the mass, 

 leaving it as indescribably ugly as before. If he takes 

 you to task, tell' him to wait and look. And while he 

 looks the little bodies again slip outward, the crescen- 

 tic disks again spread wide open, the shining tentacles 

 unfold and curl and lash the water until once more the 

 ugly jelly-mass becomes a thing of indescribable 

 beauty. This is Pecttnate'lla, well named the magnifi- 

 cent. 



The jelly is formed by the animals, and is in reality 

 a collection of protective loricse, the huge masses 

 often found being the result of the increase in the 

 numbers of the Polyzoa inhabiting them; or, as must 

 frequently occur where they are abundant, of the 

 union of many contiguous growing colonies. A 

 single animal begins the cluster; it becomes two by a 

 process of budding, the bud finally becoming another 

 Polyzoon, secreting more jelly, budding in its turn, so 

 that the community may in the end contain number- 

 less members, and the mass may measure several feet 

 in diameter. The color of the animals is usually a 

 pale red or flesh tint, deepening to crimson about the 

 mouth, which is placed near the center of the crescen- 



