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SOMETHING ABOUT JELLY-FISHES. 
BY EDWARD 8. MORSE. 
PLATE 8. 
Tue loiterer by the sea-side may have noticed in his 
rambles on the beach, certain gelatinous substances left 
by the retreating tide. An interest excited by so strange 
a sight may have prompted a closer examination, and 
yet recognizing nothing tangible or definite in the struc- 
ture of these shapeless bodies, a desire has been really 
awakened to know something about them. We will try 
to satisfy this curiosity, by giving a brief account of a few 
of our more common Jelly-fishes; for these shapeless 
lumps of jelly, seen stranded on our beaches, are really 
animals, assuming the most graceful and symmetrical 
forms in the water. 
The Jelly-fishes, or Modu, have long excited the at- 
tention of naturalists from their aingalar structure, and 
the wonderful changes occurring diving their growth. 
While in the higher expressions of animal life the anat- 
omist may puzzle over the intricacies of a complicated 
organization in the Jelly-fishes, he is at first more per- 
plexed to find anything like organization in their parts, 
though they are really highly organized compared with 
animals still lower in the scale. So transparent are some, 
that one can hardly detect their presence in the water, 
and so largely does the sea-water enter into their com- 
position, that certain kinds when dried lose ninety-nine 
one hundredths of their own weight. 
` Peron and Lesueur, two distinguished French patiki 
ists, who, in the early part of this century made a voyage 
around the globe, thus summed up the results of their 
combined observations on these animals. “The substance 
