The ocean / By P. H. Gosse.

  • Gosse, Philip Henry, 1810-1888.
Date:
[pref. 1845]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ocean / By P. H. Gosse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    368/388 (page 344)
    shell, resembling a collection of air-bubbles, but composed of a delicate white membrane, inflated, and puckered on the surface into the bubble-like divisions alluded to; it is oblong, about an inch in length. The buoyancy of this float supports the animal at the surface, where it lies with the con- vexity of the shell downward. Three or four drops of a blue liquid are contained in the body, which has been supposed to answer the purpose of con- cealment in time of danger, by imparting an obscu- rity to the water ; hut it is hardly sufficient for this purpose, as the whole quantity secreted by one animal will not discolour half a pint of water. Be- neath the float, at certain seasons, the eggs are sus- pended by pearly threads; and as the floats are fre- quently found in great numbers with eggs thus attached, but separate from the original animals, it is thought that they have the power of throwing off this appendage and forming a new one; in which case it serves the purpose of sustaining the eggs, and probably the young, within the reach of the light and heat of the sun. The Portuguese Man-of-war (.Physalis pelagic a), numerous in the warm parts of the Atlantic, is still more abundant in the seas of which I am writing. It is a beautiful little creature, though of very simple structure, consisting merely of a semi-trans- parent membranous bag, round at one end, and pointed at the other, along one side of which runs a wide membrane, puckered into perpendicular folds, and capable of being contracted and dilated; while from the opposite side depends a thick fringe of blue