THE LASSO-THROWERS. 
young Gaucho learns to play with the lasso, and 
almost as soon as he can walk, amuses himself by 
catching young birds and other animals round his 
father's hut, throwing out the long lash so skilfully 
that the noose falls over their bodies and brings them 
to his feet. As soon as he can ride he carries the 
sport farther, galloping wildly over, the plains swing- 
ing the cord round his head and letting fly at the 
ostriches, the wild cattle, and horses, or when he is 
a man, even at the jaguar or the puma. Such is the 
lasso as man uses it, consisting of a long cord or 
thong thrown with exquisite skill. 
Now among animals, as we have already seen, any 
Fig. 19. 
weapons they are to 
use must be such as 
grow upon the body, 
and we should little 
suspect that a simple 
jelly-animal could be 
provided with a lasso 
ready grown within 
its flesh. Yet so it 
is. In that division 
of life's children, 
standing in rank just 
above the sponges, The fresh-water hydra hanging from duck- 
we find a weapon of weed in a pond. 
,,..., . , i. The long-armed hydra* feeding, a a, 
this kind as simple, small animals caught in its arms . 2 . S hort- 
as deadly, and far armed hydrat throwing off young hydra- 
more wonderful in buds> b b - 
its action than the lasso of the American hunter. 
In almost any wayside pond in England it is pos- 
* Hydra fusca. + Hydra viridis. 
