SEA- BLUBBERS. 



89 



wonder that it never capsizes, but, on looking more closely 

 at it, we see depending from its bottom a great bunch of 

 wrinkled strings, some of which are blue and others crim- 

 son ; these help to keep it steady. These pendent organs, 

 which differ considerably among themselves in form and 

 appearance, have, doubtless, diverse functions ; but some 

 of them are known to be endowed with a most terrific 

 power of stinging, and are, therefore, concluded to be pre- 

 hensile tentacles, whose use is to arrest, benumb, and 

 hold the fleeting prey. 



J In another tropical genus we find a new form and a 

 hew principle of motion. A number of delicate threads, 

 called cirri, hang from the under surface, which are con- 

 sidered as the swimming organs, and the animals consti- 

 tute the order Cirrigrada, We are not sure, however, 

 whether these ought not rather to be grouped with the 

 last mentioned, the cirri being probably analogous, both 

 in structure and function, to the pendent tentacles of 

 Physalia. These, too, are dauntless mariners — ocean- 

 sailors of an antiquity long prior to the period when he of 

 the "rdbur et ces triplex'''' acquired poetic fame. ; We once 

 met with a few specimens of the " Sallee-man"* (Velella) 

 on the shore of Portland ; but we will use the elegant 

 language of Professor Jones to describe it : — *k 



u Its body is a flattened disk, which floats upon the 

 bosom of the sea j and as it swims we see depending fr m 

 its under surface a great number of small suckers, where- 

 with to suck up food as it moves slowly onward. Pro- 



* The popular names given to those oceanic Medusae point to a time when 

 the maritime power of Portugal and Morocco was more formidable than it is 

 now. 



