242 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
these living colonies detach themselves reluctantly from the strange 
spectacle, where each polype seems to play the part of the fisherman 
who throws his line, furnished with baited hooks, withdrawing h 
when he feels a nibble, and throwing again when he discovers his dis- 
appointment. These efforts continue in full vigour for two or three 
days, and I have succeeded sometimes in feeding them with the small 
crustaceans which swarm on our coasts.” 
Of the “ personelle ” of these colonies a few words will not be mis- 
placed. The common axis of the Agalma is a hollow muscular tube, the 
length of which may be three feet, and its breadth an eighth or tenth 
of an inch ; it is traversed by a double current of granulous liquid ; at 
its summit is the aerial vesicle ; beneath are the swimming vessels. 
These are disposed along the trunk in a double series, attaining some- 
times the number of sixty ; their structure is analogous to the same 
organs in the Physophora. 
In examining the posterior portion of the trunk, traversing polypes 
are observed at intervals, whose base is surrounded by a cluster of 
reddish grains, each of which is armed with a line, and with its 
surrounding filament, terminating in a tendril of a red vermilion 
colour, which is a perfect arsenal of offensive and defensive arms- 
There we find “ sabres ” of divers sizes, and poniards of various forms? 
the whole constituting a truly formidable stinging apparatus. 
These warlike engines, these arms of attack and defence with which 
man surrounds himself, Nature has freely bestowed on these little 
creatures with which the ocean swarms in some places. It might be 
said that, after having created these graceful creatures to ornament 
and decoi’ate the depths of the ocean, the Creator was so pleased with 
His work that He furnished them with arms for their protection and 
defence against all attacks from without. 
Among these creatures wo may note the pretty Apolemia contort 
of Milne Edwards (Fig. 98), which also inhabits the Mediterranean, 
and particularly the coast of Nice, and is no less admirable in it s 
structure than Agalma rubra. This elegant species is often met with 
in the Gulf of Yillafranca near Nice, and has been figured and 
described by Milne Edwards, Charles Yogt, and also by M. de Quatre- 
fages, who asks the reader “ to figure to himself an axis of flexible 
crystal, sometimes more than a metre (forty inches), all round which 
are attached, by means of long peduncles or footstalks equally trans- 
