Page:Sea and River-side Rambles in Victoria.djvu/26

7 water encloses a whole library of knowledge, waiting only to be read." How much more will the wide expanse of Ocean afford us, so densely filled with vegetable and animal life, that the mind grows fairly "dizzy wi the thought."

Unpromising as were our first glances, we walked along, sniffing the delicious odour of the seaweed, chatting of and arranging our plans for future rambles, when our friend exclaimed exultingly, "Quo minime credos gurgite, piscis erit" and truly here, where and when we least expected, our attention was arrested by millions of minute gelatinous-looking objects; we take up one, banded with pink of the faintest hue, another, and another finds its way into bottle No. 2; these were evidently a species of Acalepha or Sea-blubber, but we were unable to identify them, intermingled with them, and somewhat alike in appearance, though differing in shape, were numerous specimens crested with purple, of the bladder of the Portuguese man-of-war, (Physalia) included by Cuvier amongst the Acalephes Hydrostatiques, from its large swimming bladder, which, being easily compressed, enables it to regulate its specific gravity at will—to rise or sink at pleasure; hanging too from its under part are cilia or arms, and various other organs, which probably serve the purpose of nutrition and reproduction. According to Owen, these appendages are of three kinds—urticating, digestive, and (probably) generative. The urticating tentacles being the longest, hollow, and provided with muscular fibres, of which the most conspicuous are longitudinal, and serve to retract