Marvels of the Universe 



445 



expert on the Sea-Comets approaches nearly to the truth, and may be considered typical of many 

 of these jelly-fishes. " Imagine, if you can, a spiral axis of flexible crystals, about which is a 

 garland of hundreds of diaphanous pearls of a vivid red colour and an infinity of pendants full of 

 Hfe and light and motion, ghstening among the waves like some crowning triumph of the lapidary's 

 art — a royal sceptre endowed with vitality and consciousness — and you have at best a very slight 

 and imperfect idea of the Sea-Comet." 



These spangled webs of crystallized dew can elongate and contract amazingly, and a thread 

 of poh'ps which would stretch out to about three feet can compress itself into a finger's length. 

 Another characteristic is their frailty. The Gossamer cannot be gathered with the hand from the 

 water; it will break into an infinite number of particles, and even when "floated " into a convenient 

 receptacle and raised out of 

 the sea in its confined state 

 it soon loses its beautiful 

 filaments and shrinks to an 

 insignificant size. 



The principle b}- which these 

 creatures obtain their food- 

 suppl}- is that of the lasso. 

 As the Sagartians in the 

 Persian army captured their 

 enemies' horses and riders by 

 entanghng them in the noose 

 of the skilfully-thrown rope, so 

 these slender jeUy-fish catch 

 and seize the minute life of 

 the ocean by means of often- 

 times invisible threads, which, 

 besides, have the power of 

 stinging their prey. Their 

 power of movement, too, is 

 peculiar and is situated in the 

 usually larger swimming-blad- 

 ders. Roughly speaking, it is 

 a cup-shaped bag lined with 

 muscles, by the contraction of 

 which the water is expelled and 

 the animal in the reaction is 

 urged in the opposite direction. 



The members of a large 

 division of these thread-like 

 jelly-fish have been called b\' 

 naturahsts " siphon -bearers," 

 on account of their possession 

 of suctorial tubes which serve 

 for the reception and digestion 

 of food, and which are the 

 most important and the most the pra\a. 



constant aPDendaS'eS of their Tnle thread-like Jelly-fish is named after its favourite haunt, the Porta della 



Praya, Cape Verde Islands. The thread uniting the many polyps is so contractile 

 Structure. that three feet of "gossamer" can compress itself into a finger's length. 



