File:Ocean wonders- a companion for the seaside (1879) (14786234153).jpg

Identifier: oceanwonderscomp00damo (find matches)
Title: Ocean wonders: a companion for the seaside
Year: 1879 (1870s)
Authors: Damon, William Emerson, 1838-
Subjects: Marine animals Aquariums
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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n repose than thedepth or vertical measurementof the hull of this fantasticman-of-war. But severaltimes longer than these are nu-merous fine, contractile, thread-like organs; while the centralstreamers extend sometimes toa length a hundred and forty/ ; fL \ ; or fifty times greater than the body of the animal Theseare sometimes seen trailing atlength, and sometimes more orless coiled, glistening beneaththe water, spotted with round,pearl-like knobs, making thePhysalia one of • the most at-tractive objects to be seen onthe surface of the ocean. It isa member of the Siphonoresfamily, and, like most of the class Medusae, is phosphores-cent. Their natural habitat is in southern waters, particu-larly in the Gulf of Mexico, and those which are accidentallymet by European-bound vessels have been drifted out oftheir course by the northward-moving waters of the GulfStream. Is it not natural to wish to capture such a beautiful ob-ject, and to examine at leisure those tender, silk-like stream-
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Portuguese Man-of-Wak (Physaliaarethusa). HYDROIDS, MEDUSAE, ETC. 161 ers ? Beware, my friend! Do not too hastily grasp afterthese ocean-coquettes; all is not lovely that decks itself ingorgeous array. Hear the fate of Father Dutertre, who wasone day sailing in the Antilles, and tried to take one of theseharmless - looking beauties in his hand. I had scarcelyseized it, he writes, when all its fibres seemed to clasp myhand, covering it as with bird-lime, and I had hardly felt itin all its freshness—for it is very cold to the touch—when itseemed as if I had plunged my arm up to the shoulder inboiling oil; and this was accompanied by pains so strangethat I could scarcely prevent myself from* shrieking. Le-blond, while bathing in the Caribbean Sea, had one of theseanimals seize upon his shoulder, and he describes the pain asso intense as almost to produce a fainting-fit. He succeededin getting rid of the creature, but some of the filaments re-mained sticking in the skin, which caused

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