Physalia Pelagica. 241 



below by muscular tissues attached to the numerous sucking 

 tubes. He describes also a well-defined liver, secreting a caus- 

 tic fluid. These discoveries appear to prove that the Phy- 

 salidse do not belong to the true polyp form, composed of a 

 number of separate existences vitally attached to a central 

 polypidom or rudimentary spine, as in the Alyconium digitatum 

 (Dead-man's Fingers), or to the Pennatulidse (the curious Sea 

 Pens), but are of a much higher order of zoophytic life, if indeed 

 they are to be classed as zoophytes at all. M. Lesson also 

 gives a more precise account of the various appendages attached 

 to the base of the vesicle than had been attempted before. 

 There are, he says, four simple tubes without mouths, starting 

 like the others from the digestive apparatus ; and these he 

 considers strictly breathing-tubes. The rest of the mass of 

 short tubes he considers mouths, and the long tubes simply 

 tentacles, as described by Mr. Bennett. M. Lesson admits sis 

 kinds of this class of Analeph, or " Sea nettle ;" but to his 

 division of Gysiisomes (a name which he has framed out of the 

 Greek words cystis, a bladder, and soma, a body, as being more 

 descriptive of the bladder-body by which the Physalia is dis- 

 tinguished), he only assigns the single species Plrysalia pelagica, 

 now under description, and which he further distinguishes from 

 the allied kinds by the numerous prehensile tentacles. 



Several strange stories have long been in circulation among 

 the West Indian Islands regarding the deadly poisons pre- 

 pared from the dark purple tentacles of the Galley, or Portu- 

 guese man-of-war. Among these, there is a legend that a 

 negro cook determined to destroy his master by putting a 

 small portion of these purple tentacles into some food, which, 

 however, produced but little effect ; and he then resolved to dry 

 a quantity, which he reduced to a dark blue powder, — the first 

 dose of which, in some soup, it is said, caused the victim to 

 die in dreadful convulsions. M. Lesson has, however, disproved 

 all these idle stories by actual experiment ; the dried substance, 

 he says, is absolutely inert ; he has tried it upon dogs without 

 its producing any effect. He has also seen dogs partake of 

 the fresh tentacle, which, while it stung the lip wherever it 

 came in contact with the external skin, was perfectly harmless 

 in the stomach. After a storm, and when a number of Phy- 

 saleas have been cast ashore, he also states that fowls being 

 fed on them fatten quickly, and that the flesh of fowls so fed 

 proved as wholesome as that of poultry fed in any other way. 



Dutertre in his interesting account of the Antilles gives a 

 curiously detailed account of the galley or frigate, as the French 

 sailors term the Physalia. When full grown, he says the blad- 

 der-body is of about the size of a goose's egg, and when the 

 shore becomes crowded with shoals of these creatures, it is, he 



