PART III. 

 LOW LIFE IN THE SEA. 



ANIMATED JELLIES. 



1 The visitor to the sea-shore will rarely fail to find 

 among the growing sea-weeds little plant-like clusters, which 

 at first appear to be vegetable, but they are really the 

 curious little sea-animals called hydroids or jelly-fish. 

 From each little plant there arise buds, which soon en- 

 large, float away, and become beautiful jelly-fish. There 

 are other hydroids, in the shape of bells, and some which 

 appear like miniature trees with all their foliage massed 

 at the top, and from beneath which there depend bunches, 

 as it were, of grapes or other fruit. These fruit-like clus- 

 ters are jelly-fishes that stick fast, instead of detaching 

 themselves and becoming free jelly-fishes, as in some other 

 varieties. 



2. The name medusa is applied to the most numerous, 

 remarkable, and beautiful varieties of the jelly-fish. These 

 graceful animals may be observed anywhere in our summer 

 waters, generally not far from the shore. Seeming to the 

 careless sight to be mere floating plants, a closer inspection 

 discovers in them animal forms of the rarest beauty of 

 form and color, that sail hither and thither, and appar- 

 ently have even a certain power of controlling their move- 

 ments against the set of wind and current. 



