Physalia Pelagica. 239 



form ; while Cuvier thought tliat some of them might serve as 

 suckers, soine as ovaries, and the larger ones merely as tentacles. 

 The shorter appendages, Mr. Bennett stated, have no stinging 

 power, and were evidently provided with openings that seemed 

 to perform the office of mouths, through which food was absorbed. 

 These mouths were always expanded, as if seeking prey, at the 

 moment that the long purple feelers were darted out to a great 

 distance to secure an object aimed at, by adhesion, and also by 

 benumbing it. By a strong contractile power, in the exercise 

 of which the long tentacles shortened themselves by assuming a 

 corkscrew form of folding, the prey was brought up close to the 

 mass of shorter appendages or suckers, which, after the manner 

 of polyps, Mr. Bennett conjectured might each be attached to 

 a separate and independent stomach. 



Mr. Bennett observed, in a specimen caught in a net, several 

 small fishes benumbed in the entanglements of the long purple 

 feelers. On placing the specimen, together with its captured 

 prey, in a large tub of sea-water, he was able to watch the com- 

 mencement of the absorbent process. The semi-transparent 

 vessels of absorption showed plainly the passage of portions of 

 the fish, looking like those surgical preparations of the absorb- 

 ents which, to show their structure more plainly, are injected 

 with mercury, the portions of fish appearing to glisten like 

 silver within the absorbent tubes. He was anxious to ascertain 

 whether these tubes communicated with any central receptacle 

 or stomach, and was induced to consider, after careful dissec- 

 tion, that they did not, but found the tissue of the bladder much 

 thicker where the tubes were attached. The bladder itself he 

 found composed of a double skin, the external one being formed 

 of longitudinal fibres, and the internal one like a cellular mem- 

 brane, both in appearance and consistence. He found it 

 difficult to cut through the two coats at once, but they were 

 easily separated, and when the outer was taken off, the air did 

 not escape through the inner one, which still remained perfectly 

 inflated. On cutting through a portion of the inner coat, the air 

 still did not all escape at once, as though some delicate internal 

 compartments still safely retained separate portions. In this state 

 it still floated. When, however, he cut entirely through the lower 

 part of the vesicle, the power of floating suddenly ceased, and the 

 tentacles became paralysed. It will be seen when we come to 

 the latest discoveries concerning the Physalia pelagica, that with 

 all his care, Mr. Bennett just missed a part of the structure ; 

 the apparent absence of which induced him to believe that each 

 sucker formed in itself a separate system of absorption and 

 digestion. When confined in a tank the Physalia still exhibited 

 all its powers, darting out its tentacles, which seem admirable 

 organs of prehension, and unerringly seizing and benumbing 



