78 



LIFE. IN ITS LOWER FORMS. 



almost the whole may be resolved into simple water, 

 or a fluid which no chemical analysis has been able to 

 distinguish from sea-water. A large sea-blubber weigh- 

 ing fifty ounces is cast upon the beach, and after lying 

 exposed to a day's hot sun, all that remains is a subtile 

 and impalpable film spread over the sand where it lay, 

 which, if carefully collected, will not weigh five grains. 

 The texture appears to be a collection of cells formed 

 of the most attenuated membrane and filled with sea- 

 w T ater. 



Yet out of these simple elements, according to the re- 

 searches of Professor Agassiz, the muscular, the vascular, 

 the nervous, and other tissues are composed ; various 

 organs, some of them sufficiently complex, are formed ; and 

 different functions are originated. By a periodical suc- 

 cession of alternate expansions and contractions, the 

 apparently helpless animal contrives to pump itself 

 along through the waves with force and precision ; by 

 the elastic threads which lie coiled up in innumerable 

 capsules, ready to be darted into the flesh of its intended 

 prey, it can instantly arrest, benumb, and paralyse the 

 lithe worm and the arrowy fish ; by the contractility 

 of its fimbriated membranes it can drag the prey to 

 its protrusile mouth, in which it is speedily engulphed, 

 and almost as speedily digested, Feeble and inert as 

 they appear, some of these animals are truly to be dreaded 

 for their power of stinging, whence the whole class have 

 derived their appellation of A calephce, or nettles. " Among 

 them," says Professor Edward Forbes, " Cyancea capillata 

 of our seas is a most formidable creature, and the terror 

 of tender-skinned bathers. With its broad, tawny, fes- 



