296 



Marvels of the Universe 



enable it to extract the dissolved carbonic acid gas from the water. Many of the smaller seaweeds 

 and their fresh-water allies are similarly fashioned. The W'ater Yam's leaf, commonly known in 

 this comitry as the Lattice Leaf, unfolds from its bud with an unbroken, or almost unbroken, sur- 

 face, but as it increases in size and the parallel veins get wider apart, the spaces between become 

 perforated, and the soft green portion finally becomes visible only as a covering round the veins. 

 By this mode of development, it will be seen, an enormous surface is e.xposed to the water. 



The Lattice Leaf is about a foot long, but only a few inches broad, with a stalk twice or thrice 

 as long, which enables it to float free of its neighbours. The flower-stalk, which rises above the 

 water, divides into two or more branches, each bearing a large number of tiny flowers. 



THE LUCERNARIAN 



The beautiful Lucernarian, as it has been often called, is an animal that in popular language may 

 be said to be a kind of go-between 'twi.xt the jelly-iish and the anemone, possessing some of the 



attributes of each, but not 

 exactly resembling either. 



This little bell-shaped 

 organism — about the size 

 of a shilling — is frequently 

 found adhering to pieces 

 of floating seaweed or to 

 other objects. The body 

 consists of a single indivi- 

 dual form, and is not, like 

 nearly all of the allied 

 species, of a compound 

 mass including several. It 

 attaches itself to any object 

 by a short pedicle, or foot- 

 like process, well shown in 

 the illustration on the op- 

 posite page ; but it can de- 

 tach itself at will, and swim 

 rapidly about by contract- 

 ing and opening its um- 

 brella-like form. It can 

 also move about slowly, 

 like a leech, by fixing the 

 tentacles, to be mentioned 

 shortly, and dragging its 

 body forwards till fixed 

 again by its foot or stalk. 



The Lucernarian is pro- 

 vided with eight of these 

 tentacles arranged round the margin of the umbrella, as seen much magnified in the accompanying 

 photograph ; and each tentacle is composed of numerous increments — we have counted over 

 seventy in one tentacle — each little tufted detail being a complete suctorial agent in itself ; hence 

 the whole tentacle taken collectively is a powerful organ. 



The margin of the disc is eight-sided, the eight little processes supporting the tentacles radiat- 

 ing from the central, or mouth portion, which is really a four-sided arrangement. When food 

 is taken, the whole of the umbrella portion rapidlv folds itself over the prey, if such be too large to 



P>inlo Si/] 



THE 



This beautiful little sea -creature 

 anemone. It is about the size of a 

 floating seaweed. 



LUCERNARIAN. 



takes ranii between the jelly-fish 

 shilling, and is often to be found 



[K. J. Spitfa. 



and the sea- 

 on pieces of 



