SEA-BLUBBEES. 
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. 
In another tropical genus we find a new form and a 
new 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 Cirrtgrada. 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 
PhysaMa. These, too, are dauntless mariners — ocean- 
sailors of an antiquity long prior to the period when he of 
the “robur et ces triplex'' acquired poetic fame. We once 
met with a few specimens of the “ Sallee-man”* ( V della) 
on the shore of Portland ; but we will use the elegant 
language of Professor Jones to describe it : — 
“ Its body is a flattened disk, which floats upon the 
bosom of the sea ; and as it swims we see depending from 
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 Meduste point to a time when 
the maritime power of Portugal and Morocco was more formidable than, it is 
now. 
