52 
LIFE, IN ITS LOWER FORMS. 
and the helpless insect is dragged in ; another thread is 
brought to bear upon it, and another. Poor thing ! 
“ actum de eo est,” it is all up with him ! He is dragged 
helplessly to the base of the radiating threads, and there, 
in the midst of their circle, an aperture is gaping, which 
stretches wider and wider, while the prey is slowly sucked 
in, until it is quite engulphcd within the gelatinous body. 
But, for some time before this, the prey had become 
quite motionless ; its struggles, though violent at first, had 
soon entirely ceased, and it was evident that a fatal effect 
had been produced by the mere contact of those slender 
threads. 
What is the nature of this subtle venom that resides in 
a creature apparently so low in the scale of being, so simple 
in structure, and almost homogeneous in substance? 
Worms, and the larvae of insects, that may be wounded, 
and even chopped into pieces, and yet survive for hours, 
die suddenly from a touch of these gelatinous threads ! 
“ I have sometimes,” says Baker, “ forced a worm from a 
polype the instant it has been seized, at the expense of 
breaking off the polype’s arms, and have always observed 
it to die very soon afterwards, without one single instance 
of recovery.”* On the other hand, the tiny water-fleas, 
and other minute Crustacea, frequently escape with im- 
punity even from the very mouth of the polype ; for they 
are enclosed in a horny shell, which evidently protects 
their vital parts from the morbific touch. 
The microscope throws light on the question, and re- 
veals a most elaborate system of offensive weapons with 
which these soft and sluggish creatures are provided. 
* History of the Polype, 33. 
