amount of sea-water. If, for example, a Medusa weighing some three or four pounds be laid in the sun, the whole animal seems to evaporate, leaving in its place nothing but a little gathering of dry fibres, which hardly weigh as many grains as the original mass weighed pounds. The enclosed water has been examined by competent analysts, and has been found to differ in no perceptible degree from the water of the sea whence the animal was taken.
Though the cells appear at first sight to be disposed almost at random, a closer investigation will show that a regular arrangement prevails among them, and that they can all be referred to a legitimate organisation. So invariably is this the case, that the shape and order of these cells afford valuable characteristics in the classification of these strange beings.
Just below the upper and convex surface may be seen four elliptical marks, arranged so as to form a kind of Maltese cross, and differently coloured in the various specimens, carmine, pink, or white. These show the attachments of the curious organisation by which food is taken into the system, and may be better examined by taking up the creature, and looking at its under surface.
Now, take one of the Medusæ, choosing a specimen that lies near low-water mark, and place it in a tolerably large rock pool, where the water is clear, and where it can be watched for some time without the interruption of the advancing tide.
The apparently inanimate mass straightway becomes instinct with life, its disc contracts in places, and successive undulations roll round its margin, like the wind waves on a corn-field. By degrees the movements become more and more rythmical; the creature begins to pulsate throughout its whole substance, and before very long it rights itself like a submerged lifeboat, and passes slowly and gracefully through the water, throwing off a thousand iridescent tints from its surface, and trailing after it the appendages which form the Maltese cross above-mentioned, together with a vast array of delicate fibres, that take their origin from the edge of the disc, or umbrella, as that wonderful organ is popularly called.
Words cannot express the exceeding beauty and grace of the Medusa, as it slowly pulsates its way through the water, rotating, revolving, rising, and sinking with slow and easy undulations, and its surface radiant with rich and changeful hues, like fragments of submarine rainbows. It is often possible, when the water is particularly clear, to stand at the extremity of a pier or jetty, and watch the Medusæ as they float past in long processions, carried along by the prevailing currents, but withal maintaining their position by the exertion of their will.
The reader is doubtlessly aware that the title of Medusa is given to these creatures on account of the trailing fibres that surround the disc, just as the snaky locks of the mythological heroine surrounded her dreadful visage. Many species deserve the name by reason of the exceeding venom of their tresses, which are every whit as terrible to a human being as if they were the veritable vipers of the ancient allegory.
Fortunately for ourselves, the generality of those Medusæ which visit our shores are almost, if not wholly, harmless; but there are some species which are to be avoided as carefully as if each animal were a mass of angry wasps, and cannot safely be approached within a considerable distance. The most common of these venomous beings is the stinger, or stanger, and it is to put sea-bathers on their guard that this article is written, with a sincere hope that none of its readers may meet with the ill-fate of its author.
If the bather, or shore wanderer, should happen to see, either tossing on the waves, or thrown upon the beach, a loose, roundish mass of tawny membranes and fibres, something like a very large handful of lion’s mane and silver paper, let him beware of the object, and sacrificing curiosity to discretion, give it as wide a berth as possible. For this is the fearful stinger, scientifically called Cyanea capillata, the most plentiful and most redoubtable of our venomous Medusæ.
My first introduction to this creature was a very disastrous one, though I could but reflect afterwards that it might have been even more so. It took place as follows.
One morning towards the end of June, while swimming off the Margate coast, I saw at a distance something that looked like a patch of sand occasionally visible, and occasionally covered, as it were, by the waves, which were then running high in consequence of a lengthened gale which had not long gone down. Knowing the coast pretty well, and thinking that no sand ought to be in such a locality, I swam towards the strange object, and had got within some eight or ten yards of it before finding that it was composed of animal substance. I naturally thought that it must be the refuse of some animal that had been thrown overboard, and swam away from it, not being anxious to come in contact with so unpleasant a substance.
While still approaching it, I had noticed a slight tingling in the toes of the left foot, but as I invariably suffer from cramp in those regions while swimming, I took the “pins-and-needles” sensation for a symptom of the accustomed cramp, and thought nothing of it. As I swam on, however, the tingling extended further and further, and began to feel very much like the sting of an old nettle. Suddenly, the truth flashed across me, and I made for shore as fast as I could.
On turning round for that purpose, I raised my right arm out of the water, and found that dozens of slender and transparent threads were hanging from it, and evidently still attached to the Medusa, now some forty or fifty feet away. The filaments were slight and delicate as those of a spider’s web, but there the similitude ceased, for each was armed with a myriad poisoned darts that worked their way into the tissues, and affected the nervous system like the stings of wasps.
Before I reached shore the pain had become fearfully severe, and on quitting the cool waves it was absolute torture. Wherever one of the multitudinous threads had come in contact with the skin was a light scarlet line, which, on closer examination, was resolvable into minute dots or
